TimeTeller for timing health: The potential of circadian medicine to improve performance, prevent disease and optimize treatment

Benjamin Dose; Müge Yalçin; Sebastian P M Dries; Angela Relógio

doi:10.3389/fdgth.2023.1157654

TimeTeller for timing health: The potential of circadian medicine to improve performance, prevent disease and optimize treatment

Front Digit Health. 2023 Apr 18:5:1157654. doi: 10.3389/fdgth.2023.1157654. eCollection 2023.

Authors

Benjamin Dose¹, Müge Yalçin^{2

3

4}, Sebastian P M Dries⁵, Angela Relógio^{2

3

4}

Affiliations

¹ Kalms Consulting GmbH, Berlin, Germany.
² Institute for Theoretical Biology (ITB), Charité-Universitätsmedizin Berlin, Corporate Member of Freie Universität Berlin, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin and Berlin Institute of Health, Berlin, Germany.
³ Molecular Cancer Research Center (MKFZ), Medical Department of Hematology, Oncology, and Tumour Immunology, Charité-Universitätsmedizin Berlin, Corporate Member of Freie Universität Berlin, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin and Berlin Institute of Health, Berlin, Germany.
⁴ Institute for Systems Medicine and Faculty of Human Medicine, MSH Medical School Hamburg, Hamburg, Germany.
⁵ Fraunhofer Institute for Software and Systems Engineering ISST, Dortmund, Germany.

Abstract

Circadian medicine, the study of the effects of time on health and disease has seen an uprising in recent years as a means to enhance health and performance, and optimize treatment timing. Our endogenous time generating system -the circadian clock- regulates behavioural, physiological and cellular processes. Disruptions of the clock, via external factors like shift work or jet lag, or internal perturbations such as genetic alterations, are linked to an increased risk of various diseases like obesity, diabetes, cardiovascular diseases and cancer. By aligning an individual's circadian clock with optimal times for performing daily routines, physical and mental performance, and also the effectiveness of certain therapies can be improved. Despite the benefits of circadian medicine, the lack of non-invasive tools for characterizing the clock limits the potential of the field. TimeTeller is a non-invasive molecular/digital tool for the characterization of circadian rhythms and prediction of daily routines, including treatment timing, to unlock the potential of circadian medicine and implementing it in various settings. Given the multiple known and potentially yet unknown dependent health factors of individual circadian rhythms, the utility of this emerging biomarker is best exploited in data driven, personalized medicine use cases, using health information across lifestyle, care, and research settings.

Keywords: TimeTeller; circadian medicine; circadian rhythms; computational predictive models; diagnostic tools; health maintenance; performance optimization; personalized treatment.

Grants and funding

The work in the group of AR was funded by the Dr. Rolf M. Schwiete Stiftung. MY was additionally funded by the Berlin School of Integrative Oncology (BSIO) graduate program of the Charité Medical University Berlin and by the Einstein Foundation. The TimeTeller project was additionally funded by the I4H (Inventors for Health) Program of the Stiftung Charité, and by the Digital Health Accelerator (DHA) Program from the Berlin Institute of Health (BIH) at the Charité Medical University of Berlin (grants to AR). The funders played no role in study design, data collection, analysis and interpretation of data, or the writing of this manuscript.