Irregular Body Clock Plays a Role in the Most Prevalent Diseases

An irregular body clock plays a significant role in driving inflammation in the body’s immune cells, with implications for the most serious and prevalent diseases in humans, according to a new study published in Frontiers in Immunology.

The research was led by the School of Pharmacy and Biomolecular Sciences at RCSI University of Medicine and Health Sciences.

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Circadian rhythm (also known as sleep/wake cycle or the body clock) is a biological process that follows an internal cycle of roughly 24 hours.

‘Anything which negatively impacts body clocks, such as insufficient sleep and not enough daylight, can impact the ability of the immune system.’

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The circadian body clock generates 24-hour rhythms that keep humans healthy and in time with the day/night cycle. This includes regulating the rhythm of the body’s own (innate) immune cells called macrophages.

When these cell rhythms are disrupted (due to things like erratic eating/sleeping patterns or shift work), the cells produce molecules that drive inflammation.

This can lead to chronic inflammatory diseases such as heart disease, obesity, arthritis, diabetes, and cancer, and also impact our ability to fight infection.

Melatonin
Melatonin is the body’s master hormone with several significant functions, including the monitoring of other hormones and regulating the sleep-wake cycle.

In this study, researchers looked at these key immune cells called macrophages with and without a body clock under laboratory conditions.

They were interested to understand if macrophages without a body clock might use or ‘metabolize’ fuel differently, and if that might be the reason these cells produce more inflammatory products.

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They found that macrophages without a body clock took up far more glucose and broke it down more quickly than normal cells.

They also found that in the mitochondria (the cells energy powerhouse), the pathways by which glucose was further broken down to produce energy were very different in macrophages without a clock. This led to the production of reactive oxygen species (ROS) which further fuelled inflammation.

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Nutrient timing is knowing when to eat specific nutrients to feel energetic, full and yet not gain unhealthy weight. The ‘circadian’ rhythm helps to determine best food timing for weight loss.

The study results add to the growing body of work showing why disruption of our body clock leads to inflammatory and infectious disease, and one of the aspects is fuel usage at the level of key immune cells such as macrophages.

Source-Medindia