Most people in B.C. have changed their clocks for the last time after the provincial government announced the permanent switch to Daylight Time earlier this month.

However, some doctors warn it’s the wrong move and could have serious implications on your health and the already strained health-care system.

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“Think an increased risk of cardiovascular disease, obesity, Type 2 diabetes [and] cancer,” explained Dr. Glenn Landry, a leading sleep expert.

“We’re going to burden the health-care system that’s already buckling. We’re going to put even more strain on first responders. Why? Because we’re going to see a dramatic increase in fatigue-related accidents. We’re going to see greater health-care utilization rates, because when we burn the candle at both ends, when we don’t anchor our circadian rhythms and get the sleep, we’re designed to get… we accelerate aging and cognitive decline.”

He adds humans are built to be awake for 16 hours per day and in bed for at least eight hours, with the expectation they’re sleeping for at least seven to nine hours a night. But that’s not happening, not just in B.C., but around the world.

“Worldwide, there is a silent pandemic, and that is poor sleep. The average sleeper, the average adult who’s 30+, is getting less than seven hours of actual sleep. On average, people are getting about 6.5 to six hours, 40 minutes. That is chronic debt. We need an eight-hour sleep window to get seven hours of actual sleep. We have stages. Deep, light and REM sleep that cycle throughout the night… this is really important because these stages of sleep do very important things. Deep sleep is critical for growth, repair, restoration of the brain and body and immune system function.”

“This is going to impact not just one day of the year, it’s going to impact every day of the year.”

Landry presented proof that he feels shows Daylight Time is not healthy.

“We are going to see chronic impacts, rather than what we’d already known for decades, that when we went to Daylight Saving Time, that Monday following the change, we would see a spike — 24 to 28 per cent — in cardiovascular events. Think heart attacks and stroke. We see a spike in motor vehicle accidents in the afternoon. When we fall back to Standard Time, we get a reduction in those events, because people get an extra hour of sleep.”

Landry, like other health experts, believes the government has made a mistake and pushed the idea that Standard Time is better.

“The provincial government, in my opinion, made an economic decision. They decided that having more light at the back part of our day was going to increase opportunity for businesses. It was going to mean more people at restaurants, more people on golf courses, more people walking around enjoying their evenings. That spurs economic activity, but the shortsightedness here is that they did not understand… that what’s going to happen is the light that is so important to anchor our circadian rhythms in the mornings is going to be shifted. We won’t get that light, meaning we won’t be able to get the sleep we need, we won’t be able to fall asleep on time and get solid sleep to the point we need it. And this is going to impact not just one day of the year, it’s going to impact every day of the year.”

He explains that having more light in the evening will impact melatonin production.

“Melatonin begins rising a couple of hours before our normal bedtime, as long as we are not getting exposure to bright light and blue light, in particular. It peaks in the middle of the night and reaches its lowest levels just before we start our day. It prepares the brain and body for sleep. It also plays a role in cancer-fighting. We produce cancer cells as a normal course of our daily living, and we have systems in place to identify those cancer cells, target them for destruction, destroy them, and we literally clear them out in the morning with that first morning pee. Melatonin is impacted and gets shrunk and delayed when we get light late and don’t get light early.”

Landry says messing with melatonin is dangerous.

“We’re going to see a chronic impact of circadian misalignment. Think of it as turning our nights into days and our days into nights and shifting, even though the time remains the same. These time queues are out of base with our physiology and what we’re evolved for. Long-term, it’s going to have chronic impacts, and that will actually be a greater negative than just having one bad day a year where we went to Daylight Saving Time and fell back in the fall.”

He says B.C. still has time to course correct.

“The provincial government is trying to do the right thing — they just chose the wrong option, and it’s not too late for them to fix this.”

While B.C. makes the move, Washington state Senator Patty Murray wants to follow in Victoria’s footsteps. She’s pushing Congress to approve her proposed bill to “lock the clock” for good.”

The province says Oregon and California are also working on creating or approving similar legislation to the one in B.C.

Moving to Daylight Time for good means from November until March annually, B.C.’s time zone will match Alberta and other regions observing Mountain Standard Time. From March until November, it’ll fall in line with Washington, Oregon and California, and others in Pacific daylight time jurisdictions.

The next time change, which won’t apply to B.C., will be Nov. 1.