Certain chemotherapy treatments, for example, are more effective when given in accordance with a patient's rhythms. The growing understanding of circadian rhythms also could offer help through what's known as chronotherapy. When and what we eat also cues our rhythms, just as light and dark do, so add snacking at midnight to the list of things to avoid. Wakeful episodes can be caused by jet lag, staying out late, or looking at blue-light-emitting phone screens-which mimic daylight-at night. It happens when we consistently don't get a good night's sleep-scientists say this can mean waking up for two or three hours between 10 P.M. “They can divide faster and become a tumor.”Ĭircadian disruption doesn't only occur in shift workers. “When the clock gets disrupted, cells don't know when to divide,” says circadian biologist Satchidananda Panda of the Salk Institute for Biological Studies. Adult human cells divide every 18 to 24 hours, and one function of the circadian clock is to tell cells to do that at night to avoid DNA damage from sunlight. It also compromises the fidelity of DNA repair in cells. Circadian disruption affects metabolic pathways, the chemical reactions that produce energy in the body. The cancer connection comes about through several mechanisms. “We're starting to understand the reasons these things happen,” says Selma Masri, a circadian biologist at the University of California, Irvine, who has shown how circadian disruption pushes colon cancer progression by interfering with the way certain genes are expressed. Now there is even more evidence involving other types of malignancies, including liver, lung and colorectal cancers, from a spate of new studies. In 2019 the World Health Organization reaffirmed and updated a research statement from the agency showing that shift work is a probable carcinogen. Duration of shift work made a difference-nurses who worked night shifts for up to 30 years were at moderately increased risk for breast cancer compared with those who did shorter stints, and those who worked such shifts for more than 30 years had the highest risk. Much of the evidence concerned breast cancer and to a lesser extent prostate cancer. These rhythms affect sleeping and waking, feeding and fasting, endocrine cycles, immune function, and cell growth.įor some time now epidemiological studies of night-shift workers have linked disruptions in circadian rhythms to cancer and other diseases. What I call a body clock really means circadian rhythms, from the Latin for “about” and “day.” These are the body's internal biological pacemakers, physiological fluctuations that help us adjust to the phases of a 24-hour day by synchronizing with environmental cues such as light, dark, temperature and food intake. And a steady clock, it turns out, just might help me and many other people avoid cancer and some other diseases, according to new research. It's also a schedule that rarely disrupts my body clock. This may sound a little dull, but it's essential for my productivity. I tend to eat meals at the same times of day, too.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |