A doctor with unique experience of the health harms of Daylight Saving Time has revealed why he’s supporting Donald Trump’s idea to scrap it.
After training in Maryland and Connecticut, both of which adhere to the change, Dr Zaid Fadul moved to Arizona, which is one of two US states that doesn’t observe it.
The physician told DailyMail.com: ‘In Connecticut, you’d see a spike in car accidents, heart attacks, for a couple of days around DST.
‘The patients coming in wouldn’t say it was down to DST, but they would say things like, “I am much more tired than normal, I don’t know what happened”.
‘There were a number of cases [with heart attacks, for example] where I thought to myself, “yes, this is down to the change in the clocks”.’
He added: ‘But we don’t see any of this in Arizona.’
This Sunday, 48 of America’s 50 states will turn their clocks forward by one hour at 2am — Hawaii is the only other place that won’t adhere to the change.
Dr Fadul and a coalition of other physicians rail against DST, calling it ‘antiquated’ and saying it raises the risk of heart attacks, strokes, insomnia, suicides, car accidents and even cancer because of the sleep disturbance it causes.
Doctors are urging authorities to abandon the twice-yearly clock change that was made official in nearly every state in 1966
And the Trump administration appears to agree, with Elon Musk launching a poll online today asking people whether — if DST is canceled — they would prefer clocks to be an hour earlier or an hour later.
President Trump has also signaled his opposition to DST, saying in December that the clock change was ‘inconvenient’ and ‘very costly to our nation’.
Dr Fadul said: ‘I am against DST because I think it is antiquated and serves no real purpose at this point. It only disrupts sleep patterns and creates havoc in scheduling meetings or planes or whatever.
‘If you look at society today, we have also completely moved away from using the sun as a means to keep time.’
Losing an hour of sleep when the clocks move forward results in surges in inflammation, stress hormones and exhaustion, raising the risk of suffering from numerous health conditions.
This is because it disrupts the body’s circadian rhythm — or internal clock — by forcing an abrupt shift in the timing of light exposure. Scientists say it can also take up to a week for the body to recover from the time change.
A 2014 study that tracked hospital admissions across the state of Michigan found that those for heart attacks rose 24 percent on the Monday following the switch to DST.
Another 2016 study from Finland found the overall risk of stroke surged eight percent over the first two days after the clocks change.
And in January last year, scientists published a study which suggested Standard Time was the optimal choice for health and safety throughout the year.
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Dr Fadul said that while studies clearly showed a surge in hospital admissions for a couple of days after DST started, at the local level, the difference is more subtle.
‘It’s a small increase,’ he said.
It is not clear how many extra deaths or hospitalizations the time change causes, but a 2020 study from the University of Colorado-Boulder suggested DST may cause a six percent spike in deaths from fatal car accidents every year, or 30 additional fatalities.
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DST was implemented nationally in the US in 1918 during the First World War as an effort to save an hour’s worth of fuel each day, and again in 1942 during the Second World War.
Pictured above is Dr Zain Fadul, who called for DST to be scrapped
In 1966, the Uniform Time Act was passed to standardize DST nationwide, with only two states — Hawaii and Arizona, which have consistent daylight hours throughout the year — securing an exemption.
In 2022, the Senate passed an act that aimed to make DST permanent, although this later failed in the House.
Globally, 61 countries and territories use DST — including the UK and many US allies in Europe.
President Trump backed the efforts in December, saying on his platform Truth Social: ‘The Republican Party will use its best efforts to eliminate Daylight Saving Time, which has a small but strong constituency, but shouldn’t!’.
Dr Shelby Harris, a behavioral sleep medicine specialist in New York City, said she could see no downsides to getting rid of Daylight Saving Time.
‘I see no drawbacks,’ she told DailyMail.com, ‘It would just mean people have a little less light at night, but that is not such a bad thing. Our body is really meant to stay in Standard Time year round.
‘Car crashes are more of an issue because of sleep loss, and losing an hour of sleep raises the risk of this.’
She said that she doesn’t tend to see a spike in patients around the time DST is brought in, but did say that among her insomnia patients many are concerned that the clock change means they won’t get enough sleep.
Dr Fadul completed his residency in Connecticut between 2010 and 2013. He does not work in the ER in Arizona, but has spoken with doctors who are on the state’s medical frontlines about the time change.
A DailyMail.com poll revealed in January that nearly half of Americans would support Donald Trump’s plan to abolish DST.
