OT:Fwd: Resetting mealtime may overcome jet lag

[Guest guest]

I'm forwarding this because I found the information about the liver and diet

playing a role in circadian rhythms very interesting. I want to think about

this in connection with the functions traditionally assigned to the Liver in

TCM.

 

Victoria

 

>Resetting mealtime may overcome jet lag

>

>

> Tucson, Arizona Friday, 19 January 2001

>

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> Resetting mealtime may overcome jet lag

> Study of rats finds liver's biological clock reset

>by eating habits, a major discovery

> THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

>

> WASHINGTON - The timing of meals may play an

>important role in resetting body clocks, concludes a study that could aid

>scientists hunting ways to combat long-distance travelers' jet lag.

>

> The discovery, published in today's edition of the

>journal Science, is in rats, not travelers, scientists cautioned.

>

> Still, " it's noninvasive to change your eating

>habits, " notes lead researcher Michael Menaker, a University of Virginia

>biologist. " This would give you a reason to try it. "

>

> But more important than the nuisance of jet lag,

>Menaker stressed, the discovery that the liver resets its own biological

>rhythms according to eating habits also could point the way to better

>therapy for serious liver diseases.

>

> Everyone has a sort of master clock in the brain

>that controls " circadian rhythms, " biological patterns such as sleep and

>body temperature. This brain clock is very light-sensitive, the reason most

>people sleep at night and wake during the day. Travel to a greatly

>different time zone, however, and it can take a while for that master brain

>clock to adjust.

>

> Then scientists discovered the brain-based clock

>isn't the only control of circadian rhythms. Other organs seem to have

>their own clocks that supplement the brain's master clock. Perhaps that's

>why sleep problems aren't the only jet lag symptom; lots of sufferers

>complain of stomach upset and other problems, too.

>

> Menaker simulated jet lag by exposing rats to

>light six hours earlier than they'd normally wake. While the

>light-sensitive brain clock could adjust in a few days, the rats' separate

>liver circadian rhythms were out of sync for up to two weeks.

>

> The liver helps control food metabolism. So

>Menaker, working with scientists in Norway and Japan, wondered if changing

>mealtimes would reset the liver's own circadian rhythm and thus help

>readjust the overall body clock.

>

> They tested rats genetically engineered to carry a

>fluorescent-stained clock-related gene - when and how much the rats' liver

>tissue glowed under a microscope showed allowed measurement of the liver's

>circadian rhythms.

>

> Rats normally sleep during the day and feed at

>night. Allow them food only for four hours during daylight and they rapidly

>act like day is night, pumping away on their exercise wheels for a few

>hours before the food appears.

>

> Are they just hungry? Checking those liver genes

>under the microscope, Menaker found that the circadian clock in the liver

>had shifted by 10 hours after just two days of adjusted mealtimes.

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