Some people experience effects similar to jet lag, but no association with declines in mental health, study shows.
When the clocks “ spring forward ” this weekend, there may be more heart attacks and more fatal traffic accidents, but fewer crimes that involve physical harm.
Daylight saving time has been blamed for many ills, from faded curtains to confused dogs, but an international study has found more evidence is needed for many of the claims around the time shift.
The study, which included two Swinburne University researchers looked at 157 studies from 36 countries over a decade.
The research has been published in the European Journal of Epidemiology.
The issue is not so much being able to do those studies, it’s working out the causal mechanism.
Australia’s patchwork time zones combined with the fact that Queensland, Western Australia and the Northern Territory do not have DST have made it an oft-debated topic, in the lead up to the transition.
South Australia, New South Wales, Victoria, Tasmania and the ACT residents will put their clocks forward at 2am on Sunday.
Bullock said they used epidemiological data from hospital and government records, and other sets with big sample sizes, but that their results are still correlational.
They did debunk the idea that changing clocks has an effect on mental health.
President Donald Trump is pushing to make DST permanent, and the House of Representatives has passed a bill to that effect – the Sunshine Protection Act.
Bullock said with so many pro and cons in the debate, and so little solid evidence, the best advice was to “make the most of the extra sunlight hours”.