Alcohol, chronobiology and sleep.

Chronobiology is the scientific discipline of biologic rhythm study. Applic ations of the emerging concepts of chronobiology are now use in several fie lds of clinical medicine. Alcohol related disorders seems to be clarified w ith the main concepts of chronobiology. Thus chronopharmacology (specially chronokinetics and time-related differences in drug effects) clears up vari ations of blood alcohol levels and toxicity of ethanol during the 24 h, chr onesthesy explains the action of ethanol on biological rhythms of hormone s ecretions and sleep, and the concept of chronopathology seems to be apply t o alcohol dependence. We review in this article some applications in alcoho l related disorders of the main concepts of chronobiology. (C) 2001 Edition s scientifiques et medicales Elsevier SAS.