14 ms·

Research shows circadian clock influences metabolism, cell and tumor growth

148 points by WaitWaitWha 4y ago

throw0101a 4y ago
For those curious about the general field: > Chronobiology is a field of biology that examines timing processes, including periodic (cyclic) phenomena in living organisms, such as their adaptation to solar- and lunar-related rhythms.[1] * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chronobiology https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chronobiology
splittingTimes 4y ago
What does "disruption of circadian rhythm" really mean in layman's terms? "influence our biological clock, including night shift work, extended light exposure, changes in sleep/wake cycles and altered feeding behavior," Is it anything that deviates from going to sleep when the sun sinks and sleeping through till you naturally wake up when the sun rises? What about those: Waking up at night because you have to pee? Waking up early because you got something on your mind (like work related problems that need solving) Going to bed late because you addictively browse HN? Jet lag after travels? Not taking an after lunch nap when I feel like it? Needing to be wakened by an alarm? Generally bad or not enough sleep?
- sooheon 4y ago
  Think of a heatmap of your hours awake over the past 6 months. How many of these things like waking up to pee actually make a difference? There's your answer.
- joenathanone 4y ago
  I'll take a layman's crack... >Waking up at night because you have to pee? You may want to not drink large amounts of liquid before going to bed, altering your liquid consumption times/schedule could resolve this. >Waking up early because you got something on your mind (like work related problems that need solving) Stress is known to generally be bad for health and well-being, there are animals can outright die from too much stress. >Going to bed late because you addictively browse HN? Stick to a better schedule. >Jet lag after travels? Don't travel too much if you can help it. >Not taking an after lunch nap when I feel like it? This may have to do with an unhealthy diet >Needing to be wakened by an alarm? Personally I've noticed that after using an alarm for a month or so, I start to naturally wake up just before the alarm is set to go off. >Generally bad or not enough sleep? Definitely an issue, if you cannot find a solution on your own, you may want to see a specialist.
  - Apocryphon 4y ago
    > You may want to not drink large amounts of liquid before going to bed, altering your liquid consumption times/schedule could resolve this. Sleep apnea causes nocturia, so that might not be a solution.
- hackerlight 4y ago
  Your body has a lot of processes that run on a 24-24.5 hour clock, such as metabolism, melatonin and temperature, which are mostly synchronized and coordinated by bright light exposure. You're designed to sleep during part of that 24 hour cycle, and be awake during another part. Large disruptions are worse than small ones. Waking up 1 hour earlier than normal occasionally is not a large disruption. Jet lag because you woke up 5 hours earlier would be a big disruption. What does a big disruption look like in terms of measurements? All of the many processes than normally oscillate together in phase go out of phase. I'm no expert in this stuff, but if you want to read about it, search for "chronobiology".
- Gene_Parmesan 4y ago
  I always wonder about these types of studies too. I have diagnosed delayed sleep phase disorder, secondary to adhd. I sleep odd hours compared to the norm - approximately 3am to 10am. However, my schedule (while odd) is completely stable. I go to bed when I feel tired and I wake up feeling refreshed. Does the fact that my natural sleep habits are so off-the-bell-curve put me in the "disrupted circadian rhythm" group or not? I never feel sleep deprived. And I've been told by specialists that trying to force myself to sleep a normal schedule could put me at a significantly increased risk of dementia, alzheimers, stroke, heart attack, and more. So the thought that I might still be doing myself harm sucks.
  - hackerlight 4y ago
    From what I've read, the damage comes from jet lag and shifting schedules. If you have a stable sleep schedule and are exposed to light and noise and so on in the same way that regular people are, then your body won't (can't) know the difference.
- 8fingerlouie 4y ago
  > Is it anything that deviates from going to sleep when the sun sinks and sleeping through till you naturally wake up when the sun rises? And how does it affect people living close to the poles, where the sun basically doesn't set for 3 months in the summer and doesn't rise for 3 months in the winter. (Scandinavia, Canada, etc)
  - hackerlight 4y ago
    Free-running sleep disorder in the extreme case of no sun and no concerted effort to entrain to sufficiently bright artificial light. "Probably the best study to illustrate the effects of an unstructured life during the Antarctic winter is that of four Greenpeace volunteers over-wintering at Cape Evans Base 77°38′S in 1990 (Kennaway & Van Dorp, 1991). For the entire period of sundown (sun below the horizon for 126 d), all four (three men and one woman) showed free-running rhythms of all the variables studied: sleep, aMT6s, electrolytes, and cortisol. Each person free-ran with their own period initially, although two (a man and a woman) subsequently free-ran with the same period. With the return of the sun, all four resynchronized to the 24-h day." https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3793275/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3793275/
bergenty 4y ago
When they say circadian rhythm do they specifically mean sleeping 8 hours or sleeping at the same time everyday?
- nomel 4y ago
  No, they mean the usual definition of the word, the biological mechanisms that regulate sleep/wake processes in the body, synchronized almost entirely by light, run by a small bit of your brain.
  - bergenty 4y ago
    Regulated by just sunlight or any light? Basically is it wavelength specific etc?
    - nomel 4y ago
      Mostly blue light: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7065627/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7065627/ This is why blue-light-dimming night modes are being integrated into devices.
      - deleted 4y ago
        [deleted]
- jollybean 4y ago
  Both, and, doing it at night, not during the day.
sirshmooey 4y ago
Lacking light perception, no group of people more so than the blind experience circadian rhythm disruption. So it’s interesting and possibly contradictory to this study that they also experience reduced cancer incidence across the board. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/9730026/#:~:text=Totally%20blind%20people%20had%20a,in%20other%20types%20of%20cancer https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/9730026/#:~:text=Totally%20b....
- Nick87633 4y ago
  I know nothing about being blind, but maybe there is some confounding lifestyle factor for blind people.
  - hammock 4y ago
    Well, the blind would not be as tempted by a McDonalds advertisement, for starters
    - dylan604 4y ago
      I mean, who doesn't hear the "I'm lovin' it" jingle and not want a highly processed not real meat patty shaped something on a bun?
      - 411111111111111 4y ago
        > not real meat patty Since when? Last time I checked they're selling real meat from animals that lived in an absolute horror show for their short life, which came to a close in the slaughter house where they're drowned in CO2.
        dylan604 4y ago
        I mean, if you want to consider other animal parts used as filler as real meat, then sure. Personally, I don't.
captainkrtek 4y ago
On a related topic, the book “Why Time Flies” by Alan Burdick is a great read, and touches on biology related aspects of time.
standardUser 4y ago
I hate this. I keep unusual and oftentimes random hours and I like it. I pull all-nighters maybe once or twice a month. Sometimes to party, sometimes to work, sometimes just because. But there is a lot of research arguing that my habits are a terrible idea. I consider myself healthier, more active and more resilient than a lot of people in their early 40's. But I'd hate to think I'm shooting myself in the foot by making my various internal systems go haywire because of my bizarre sleep patterns.
- Barrin92 4y ago
  >I consider myself healthier, more active and more resilient than a lot of people in their early 40's then I suggest you keep doing what you're doing because life isn't lived in the aggregate, and if your behavior works for you there's nothing wrong with it. If your schedule is liberating to you throwing that away for a 0.1% chance of whatever complication probably isn't worth it, as long as you're aware of the trade-offs.
  - hackerlight 4y ago
    I don't agree with that. Would you say this to a smoker or someone morbidly obese? This isn't something harmless like treating yourself to drinking diet soda or eating ice crime on the odd occasion. It's not hard to fix for most people either. Switching off devices and lights at night, and getting sunlight in the morning, is often what's needed to fix what presented as mild DPSD or N24 sleep disorder.
    - Barrin92 4y ago
      >I don't agree with that. Would you say this to a smoker or someone morbidly obese? Yes. This neurotic obsession with health that categorizes every deviation from the norm as something that needs fixing rather than a choice that people make needs to stop. Smoking is bad, drinking is bad, unhealthy food is bad, staying up at night is bad. For everything that even remotely makes live fun you now have some health fixated busybody lecture you on it.
abledon 4y ago
Its weird that we know this stuff, but doctors and nurses, the 'caretakers' of health, are put on insane sleep schedule cycles in their work.
- grecy 4y ago
  I mean, doctors clearly know better, but they Continue to smoke at a higher rate than the regular population...
  - dylan604 4y ago
    Only 9 out of 10 doctors. There's always that one in the bunch that spoils it. Also, people get hurt at all hours of the day. For one, I'm quite happy that if I get hurt at stupid o'clock in the morning that there will also be medical staff awake at the same hour to help rather than making me wait for banker's hours before being treated.
    - moring 4y ago
      Night shifts per se do not imply the current insane sleep cycles for doctors and nurses at all. Understaffing, greed, political neglect and short-term-only planning do.
  - withinboredom 4y ago
    Guaranteed 10 minute break whenever you want it. This is why I smoked in the military, I could always escape anything for a few mins while my non-smokers had to work. It was also a great time to just chat and socialize.
  - bongoman37 4y ago
elwebmaster 4y ago
Life is too complex for us humans to understand, we are just scratching the surface. There are too many confounding variables. Smoking has been proven to kill but has not smoking been shown to improve quality of life and longevity for the SAME individuals who died of smoking? There are multiple variables at play: smoking kills animals in a lab but what about depression and stress which otherwise be reduced by smoking? Some people are not prone to such problems or have other ways of dealing with them so smoking would just kill such people. But for others it could improve their quality of life or even longevity. Same goes with the idea in this article: travel less to stay healthy? Many would argue that life’s purpose is to travel and make memories, life would be meaningless for these people. Don’t take night shifts to live longer? Easier said than done if not taking night shifts means you and your family go to sleep hungry or you have to take a dangerous day job. It’s great that we are learning more about this terrible disease but extrapolating the findings to universal lifestyle choices is nonsense.
_8j50 4y ago
So, I constantly struggled with this because of ever shifting circadian clock. I recently found a strong appreciation for sleeping pills. You have no idea how happy I am because of them. No more hours of being awake trying to sleep followed by days of wanting to sleep but couldn't. I suggest going for the pill for anyone who struggles.
- seandoe 4y ago
  Interesting to hear. I've been considering seeking out medication for sleeping. Do you use a benzo?
  - _8j50 4y ago
    No, the cheapest diphenhydramine I could find.
- tsol 4y ago
  Watch out, long term diphenhydramine use is linked to increased rates of dementia and alzheimers. I switched to natural herbal teas like valerian. source: https://www.health.harvard.edu/blog/common-anticholinergic-drugs-like-benadryl-linked-increased-dementia-risk-201501287667 https://www.health.harvard.edu/blog/common-anticholinergic-d...
  - _8j50 4y ago
    Thanks. I figured there will always be a side effect from pills so I avoided them. I use them a lot now but I am hoping to only use them when I need to force myself to sleep early.
ta988 4y ago
Some cancer treatment centers are starting to take circadian rythm into account to time the different chemotherapies as they noticed they don't work the same at different moment of the day. They are also working on making sure the patients have correct sleep cycles.
mealkh 4y ago
Would be interesting to see this play out for families with many kids. Just the one toddler already killed my sleep for the last two years, with frequent waking up at night. Can't imagine what it'd be like with 5 kids waking up randomly and crying for milk, potty etc.

148 points by WaitWaitWha 4y ago

For those curious about the general field: > Chronobiology is a field of biology that examines timing processes, including periodic (cyclic) phenomena in living organisms, such as their adaptation to solar- and lunar-related rhythms.[1] * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chronobiology https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chronobiology

splittingTimes 4y ago

What does "disruption of circadian rhythm" really mean in layman's terms? "influence our biological clock, including night shift work, extended light exposure, changes in sleep/wake cycles and altered feeding behavior," Is it anything that deviates from going to sleep when the sun sinks and sleeping through till you naturally wake up when the sun rises? What about those: Waking up at night because you have to pee? Waking up early because you got something on your mind (like work related problems that need solving) Going to bed late because you addictively browse HN? Jet lag after travels? Not taking an after lunch nap when I feel like it? Needing to be wakened by an alarm? Generally bad or not enough sleep?

sooheon 4y ago
Think of a heatmap of your hours awake over the past 6 months. How many of these things like waking up to pee actually make a difference? There's your answer.
joenathanone 4y ago
I'll take a layman's crack... >Waking up at night because you have to pee? You may want to not drink large amounts of liquid before going to bed, altering your liquid consumption times/schedule could resolve this. >Waking up early because you got something on your mind (like work related problems that need solving) Stress is known to generally be bad for health and well-being, there are animals can outright die from too much stress. >Going to bed late because you addictively browse HN? Stick to a better schedule. >Jet lag after travels? Don't travel too much if you can help it. >Not taking an after lunch nap when I feel like it? This may have to do with an unhealthy diet >Needing to be wakened by an alarm? Personally I've noticed that after using an alarm for a month or so, I start to naturally wake up just before the alarm is set to go off. >Generally bad or not enough sleep? Definitely an issue, if you cannot find a solution on your own, you may want to see a specialist.
- Apocryphon 4y ago
  > You may want to not drink large amounts of liquid before going to bed, altering your liquid consumption times/schedule could resolve this. Sleep apnea causes nocturia, so that might not be a solution.
hackerlight 4y ago
Your body has a lot of processes that run on a 24-24.5 hour clock, such as metabolism, melatonin and temperature, which are mostly synchronized and coordinated by bright light exposure. You're designed to sleep during part of that 24 hour cycle, and be awake during another part. Large disruptions are worse than small ones. Waking up 1 hour earlier than normal occasionally is not a large disruption. Jet lag because you woke up 5 hours earlier would be a big disruption. What does a big disruption look like in terms of measurements? All of the many processes than normally oscillate together in phase go out of phase. I'm no expert in this stuff, but if you want to read about it, search for "chronobiology".
Gene_Parmesan 4y ago
I always wonder about these types of studies too. I have diagnosed delayed sleep phase disorder, secondary to adhd. I sleep odd hours compared to the norm - approximately 3am to 10am. However, my schedule (while odd) is completely stable. I go to bed when I feel tired and I wake up feeling refreshed. Does the fact that my natural sleep habits are so off-the-bell-curve put me in the "disrupted circadian rhythm" group or not? I never feel sleep deprived. And I've been told by specialists that trying to force myself to sleep a normal schedule could put me at a significantly increased risk of dementia, alzheimers, stroke, heart attack, and more. So the thought that I might still be doing myself harm sucks.
- hackerlight 4y ago
  From what I've read, the damage comes from jet lag and shifting schedules. If you have a stable sleep schedule and are exposed to light and noise and so on in the same way that regular people are, then your body won't (can't) know the difference.
8fingerlouie 4y ago
> Is it anything that deviates from going to sleep when the sun sinks and sleeping through till you naturally wake up when the sun rises? And how does it affect people living close to the poles, where the sun basically doesn't set for 3 months in the summer and doesn't rise for 3 months in the winter. (Scandinavia, Canada, etc)
- hackerlight 4y ago
  Free-running sleep disorder in the extreme case of no sun and no concerted effort to entrain to sufficiently bright artificial light. "Probably the best study to illustrate the effects of an unstructured life during the Antarctic winter is that of four Greenpeace volunteers over-wintering at Cape Evans Base 77°38′S in 1990 (Kennaway & Van Dorp, 1991). For the entire period of sundown (sun below the horizon for 126 d), all four (three men and one woman) showed free-running rhythms of all the variables studied: sleep, aMT6s, electrolytes, and cortisol. Each person free-ran with their own period initially, although two (a man and a woman) subsequently free-ran with the same period. With the return of the sun, all four resynchronized to the 24-h day." https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3793275/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3793275/

bergenty 4y ago

When they say circadian rhythm do they specifically mean sleeping 8 hours or sleeping at the same time everyday?

nomel 4y ago
No, they mean the usual definition of the word, the biological mechanisms that regulate sleep/wake processes in the body, synchronized almost entirely by light, run by a small bit of your brain.
- bergenty 4y ago
  Regulated by just sunlight or any light? Basically is it wavelength specific etc?
  - nomel 4y ago
    Mostly blue light: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7065627/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7065627/ This is why blue-light-dimming night modes are being integrated into devices.
    - deleted 4y ago
      [deleted]
jollybean 4y ago
Both, and, doing it at night, not during the day.

sirshmooey 4y ago

Lacking light perception, no group of people more so than the blind experience circadian rhythm disruption. So it’s interesting and possibly contradictory to this study that they also experience reduced cancer incidence across the board. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/9730026/#:~:text=Totally%20blind%20people%20had%20a,in%20other%20types%20of%20cancer https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/9730026/#:~:text=Totally%20b....

Nick87633 4y ago
I know nothing about being blind, but maybe there is some confounding lifestyle factor for blind people.
- hammock 4y ago
  Well, the blind would not be as tempted by a McDonalds advertisement, for starters
  - dylan604 4y ago
    I mean, who doesn't hear the "I'm lovin' it" jingle and not want a highly processed not real meat patty shaped something on a bun?
    - 411111111111111 4y ago
      > not real meat patty Since when? Last time I checked they're selling real meat from animals that lived in an absolute horror show for their short life, which came to a close in the slaughter house where they're drowned in CO2.
      - dylan604 4y ago
        I mean, if you want to consider other animal parts used as filler as real meat, then sure. Personally, I don't.

captainkrtek 4y ago

On a related topic, the book “Why Time Flies” by Alan Burdick is a great read, and touches on biology related aspects of time.

standardUser 4y ago

I hate this. I keep unusual and oftentimes random hours and I like it. I pull all-nighters maybe once or twice a month. Sometimes to party, sometimes to work, sometimes just because. But there is a lot of research arguing that my habits are a terrible idea. I consider myself healthier, more active and more resilient than a lot of people in their early 40's. But I'd hate to think I'm shooting myself in the foot by making my various internal systems go haywire because of my bizarre sleep patterns.

Barrin92 4y ago
>I consider myself healthier, more active and more resilient than a lot of people in their early 40's then I suggest you keep doing what you're doing because life isn't lived in the aggregate, and if your behavior works for you there's nothing wrong with it. If your schedule is liberating to you throwing that away for a 0.1% chance of whatever complication probably isn't worth it, as long as you're aware of the trade-offs.
- hackerlight 4y ago
  I don't agree with that. Would you say this to a smoker or someone morbidly obese? This isn't something harmless like treating yourself to drinking diet soda or eating ice crime on the odd occasion. It's not hard to fix for most people either. Switching off devices and lights at night, and getting sunlight in the morning, is often what's needed to fix what presented as mild DPSD or N24 sleep disorder.
  - Barrin92 4y ago
    >I don't agree with that. Would you say this to a smoker or someone morbidly obese? Yes. This neurotic obsession with health that categorizes every deviation from the norm as something that needs fixing rather than a choice that people make needs to stop. Smoking is bad, drinking is bad, unhealthy food is bad, staying up at night is bad. For everything that even remotely makes live fun you now have some health fixated busybody lecture you on it.

abledon 4y ago

Its weird that we know this stuff, but doctors and nurses, the 'caretakers' of health, are put on insane sleep schedule cycles in their work.

grecy 4y ago
I mean, doctors clearly know better, but they Continue to smoke at a higher rate than the regular population...
- dylan604 4y ago
  Only 9 out of 10 doctors. There's always that one in the bunch that spoils it. Also, people get hurt at all hours of the day. For one, I'm quite happy that if I get hurt at stupid o'clock in the morning that there will also be medical staff awake at the same hour to help rather than making me wait for banker's hours before being treated.
  - moring 4y ago
    Night shifts per se do not imply the current insane sleep cycles for doctors and nurses at all. Understaffing, greed, political neglect and short-term-only planning do.
- withinboredom 4y ago
  Guaranteed 10 minute break whenever you want it. This is why I smoked in the military, I could always escape anything for a few mins while my non-smokers had to work. It was also a great time to just chat and socialize.
- bongoman37 4y ago

elwebmaster 4y ago

Life is too complex for us humans to understand, we are just scratching the surface. There are too many confounding variables. Smoking has been proven to kill but has not smoking been shown to improve quality of life and longevity for the SAME individuals who died of smoking? There are multiple variables at play: smoking kills animals in a lab but what about depression and stress which otherwise be reduced by smoking? Some people are not prone to such problems or have other ways of dealing with them so smoking would just kill such people. But for others it could improve their quality of life or even longevity. Same goes with the idea in this article: travel less to stay healthy? Many would argue that life’s purpose is to travel and make memories, life would be meaningless for these people. Don’t take night shifts to live longer? Easier said than done if not taking night shifts means you and your family go to sleep hungry or you have to take a dangerous day job. It’s great that we are learning more about this terrible disease but extrapolating the findings to universal lifestyle choices is nonsense.

_8j50 4y ago

So, I constantly struggled with this because of ever shifting circadian clock. I recently found a strong appreciation for sleeping pills. You have no idea how happy I am because of them. No more hours of being awake trying to sleep followed by days of wanting to sleep but couldn't. I suggest going for the pill for anyone who struggles.

seandoe 4y ago
Interesting to hear. I've been considering seeking out medication for sleeping. Do you use a benzo?
- _8j50 4y ago
  No, the cheapest diphenhydramine I could find.
tsol 4y ago
Watch out, long term diphenhydramine use is linked to increased rates of dementia and alzheimers. I switched to natural herbal teas like valerian. source: https://www.health.harvard.edu/blog/common-anticholinergic-drugs-like-benadryl-linked-increased-dementia-risk-201501287667 https://www.health.harvard.edu/blog/common-anticholinergic-d...
- _8j50 4y ago
  Thanks. I figured there will always be a side effect from pills so I avoided them. I use them a lot now but I am hoping to only use them when I need to force myself to sleep early.

ta988 4y ago

Some cancer treatment centers are starting to take circadian rythm into account to time the different chemotherapies as they noticed they don't work the same at different moment of the day. They are also working on making sure the patients have correct sleep cycles.

mealkh 4y ago

Would be interesting to see this play out for families with many kids. Just the one toddler already killed my sleep for the last two years, with frequent waking up at night. Can't imagine what it'd be like with 5 kids waking up randomly and crying for milk, potty etc.