Why getting vaccinated in the morning would be more effective than in the afternoon

Even if you are not in the morning, your immune system is more efficient when you wake up. This has been demonstrated by the University of Geneva (UNIGE) and the Ludwigs-Maximilians University of Munich (LMU). And that could change a lot of things, for example for injecting vaccines. If you have the choice of the schedule for your third dose of the Covid-19 vaccine or for an injection against the flu, be as early as possible.

“Better immune response in the morning”

“There is a better immune response in the morning than in the afternoon” with “twice as many antibodies in the morning as in the afternoon”, explains Christoph Scheiermann, immunologist at the University of Geneva. What his team has just discovered with this study, the results of which have been published in the journal Nature Immunologyis that the sentinel cells of the immune system, those which give the alarm when our body is attacked by a microbe, are much more reactive and mobile early in the morning, when the body is rested.

This function of the immune system is actually punctuated by our internal biological clock, a clock very sensitive to the appearance of daylight. Better take into account, this natural rhythm of our immune defenses would make it possible both to optimize the effectiveness of vaccines, but also other drugs that interact with our immune system, for example immunotherapies against certain cancers or the treatment of diseases. autoimmune.