![]() ![]() Our work indicates that part of the reason why some people are up with the lark while others are night owls is because of differences in both the way our brains react to external light signals and the normal functioning of our internal clocks. However, we still know very little about whether or not your body clock influences your risk of disease. Jones of the University of Exeter Medical School said, “The discovery of this fundamental body-clock mechanism in the brain recently won the Nobel Prize for medicine in 2017. Our body clock affects a wide range of molecular processes, including hormone levels and core body temperature, as well as our waking and sleeping patterns. The retinal connection may help explain how the brain detects light to “reset” the body clock each day and align with the 24-hour cycle. Our body clocks are influenced by genes and lifestyle factors including diet, exposure to artificial light, and our jobs and activities. ![]() ![]() The body clock cycle is slightly longer than the 24-hour daily cycle. The genomic regions identified include those central to our body clocks, also referred to as circadian rhythms, as well as genes expressed in the brain and in retinal tissue. The researchers found that the genetic areas influenced sleep timing but not the quality or duration of sleep. This information showed that the genetic variants the researchers identified could shift a person’s natural waking time by up to 25 minutes - changing some people’s waking time from 8 a.m. The researchers confirmed their results using information from wrist-worn activity trackers used by more than 85,000 individuals in the U.K. All participants were asked if they were “morning people” or “evening people,” and their genomes were analyzed to look at genes they had in common that may influence their sleep patterns. ![]() The work was conducted in 250,000 U.S.-based research participants in 23andMe, a company that provides private genomic analyses, and 450,000 people in the U.K. The large number of people in our study means we have provided the strongest evidence to date that ‘night owls’ are at higher risk of mental health problems, such as schizophrenia and lower mental well-being, although further studies are needed to fully understand this link.” Michael Weedon of the University of Exeter Medical School, who led the research, said, “This study highlights a large number of genes which can be studied in more detail to work out how different people can have different body clocks. It also increased the number of areas of the genome known to influence whether someone is an early riser from 24 to 351. It highlighted the key role of the retina in helping the body keep time. The study was conducted by an international collaboration, led by the University of Exeter and Harvard-affiliated Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) and funded primarily by the Medical Research Council of the U.K. However, despite much previous speculation, the results did not reveal any strong links to diseases such as diabetes or obesity. The study, published in Nature Communications, suggests that being genetically programmed to rise early may lead to greater well-being and a lower risk of schizophrenia and depression. EXETER, U.K./BOSTON - A large-scale genomic analysis has revealed some of the inner workings of the body clock, shedding new light on how it links to mental health and disease. ![]()
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