A study has found a link between dysregulation of circadian clock genes and chronic drinking in humans.

The new study has found that significantly lower levels of messenger ribonucleic acid (mRNA) - a molecule of RNA that helps to manufacture proteins - in circadian clock genes in alcohol-dependent (AD) patients support a relationship between circadian clock gene dysregulation and drinking in humans.
"The body's daily biological, or circadian, rhythms modulate our physiological functions and related behaviors such as body temperature, hormone secretions, and sleep/wake cycle," said Sy-Jye Leu, a researcher with the Taipei Medical University and corresponding author for the study.
"Circadian rhythms are the outward manifestation of an internal timing system which is driven by several genetic elements, what we call circadian clock genes."
The appropriate expression or regulation of these genes is necessary for any organism to efficiently "program" physiological and behavioral activities in order to ensure survival, she said.
Chian-Jue Kuo, attending psychiatrist and assistant professor at Taipei City Hospital, said: "AD is related to circadian rhythm dysfunction such as sleep problems and mood changes. This study is important because the authors used a clinical sample, instead of animal models, to look into circadian dysregulation in AD patients."
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Leu and her colleagues examined blood samples from 22 male patients who met the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders - Fourth Edition criteria for AD, as well as 12 healthy "control" subjects for comparison.
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"In other words, chronic alcohol consumption was associated with a destruction of normal circadian clock gene expression. This altered expression is closely related to circadian rhythm dysfunction and might link to a variety of physiological problems such as sleep/wake cycle dysregulation, depression, and even cancer," said Leu.
The results will be published in the November 2010 issue of Alcoholism: Clinical and Experimental Research.
Source-ANI