Here’s how body clock cycles affect our immune system
3Reported today on TheNextWeb
For the full article visit: https://thenextweb.com/syndication/2020/01/15/heres-how-body-clock-cycles-affect-our-immune-system/
Here's how body clock cycles affect our immune system
All life on Earth has evolved to cope with a rotating planet which results in the predictable transition between day and night. The details differ between plants, fungi, bacteria, and animals, but the consistent feature is a biological "clock" that allows the organism to anticipate the change and prepare for it.
In animals, the central clock that keeps track of night and day is in the brain where it receives light from the retina to keep synchronized with the light or dark. But all cells in the body have their own clocks. Because these biological clocks have a cycle that is close to 24 hours they are termed circadian ("circa" meaning "about" and dian, meaning day, from the Latin "dies".)
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We now live with cheap, bright, artificial light, shift-work, sleep-deprivation, and jet-lag – all major challenges to the ancient circadian control mechanisms in our bodies. All these circadian and sleep challenges are associated with disease. But in our latest study, using mice, we discovered that infections at different times of the day cause different severity of disease.
Surprisingly, we found that the clock ticki