Short-term vascular responses to spring and fall daylight savings time shifts

Daylight saving time (DST) is a Western biannual time transition, setting the clock back 1 h in the fall and forward 1 h in the spring. There is an epidemiological link between DST and acute myocardial infarction risk in the first week following the spring shift; however, the mechanisms underlying the effect of DST on cardiovascular function remain unclear. The purpose of this study was to explore the short-term cardiovascular changes induced by fall and spring shifts in DST in a convenience sample of healthy adults. We hypothesized that spring, but not fall, DST shifts would acutely increase central pulse wave velocity, the gold standard measurement of central arterial stiffness. Twenty-one individuals (fall: