Summary
Disruption of circadian rhythms — whether from genetic clock mutations, shift work, jet lag, or mistimed eating — promotes obesity and metabolic disease by uncoupling internal metabolic timing from environmental cues. Lighting design that reinforces robust light-dark cycles may help mitigate these metabolic risks, particularly for shift workers and those with irregular schedules.
Key Findings
- Circadian misalignment from shift work and jet lag is associated with increased risk of obesity and metabolic disease in both animal models and human studies.
- Inappropriate timing of food intake and high-fat feeding disrupts temporal coordination of metabolism, contributing to metabolic pathogenesis.
- Molecular clock disruption in both brain and peripheral tissues impairs inter-organ communication and gene oscillation timing, identifying targets for preventive and therapeutic strategies.
Categories
Sleep & Circadian Health: Reviews how circadian disruption from shift work, jet lag, and mistimed food intake contributes to metabolic dysregulation.
Shift Work & Staff Wellbeing: Discusses shift work and circadian misalignment as environmental drivers of obesity and metabolic disease in humans.
Author(s)
E Maury
Publication Year
2019
Number of Citations
126
Related Publications
Sleep & Circadian Health
- Phototransduction by retinal ganglion cells that set the circadian clock
- The mammalian circadian timing system: organization and coordination of central and peripheral clocks
- The two‐process model of sleep regulation: a reappraisal
- Melanopsin is required for non-image-forming photic responses in blind mice
- Strange vision: ganglion cells as circadian photoreceptors
Shift Work & Staff Wellbeing
- Endocrine regulation of circadian physiology
- Working against the biological clock: a review for the Occupational Physician
- Shiftwork and light at night negatively impact molecular and endocrine timekeeping in the female reproductive axis in humans and rodents
- Circadian Rhythms Disrupted by Light at Night and Mistimed Food Intake Alter Hormonal Rhythms and Metabolism
- Alerting and circadian effects of short-wavelength vs. long-wavelength narrow-bandwidth light during a simulated night shift