Circadian Rhythm: Influence on Sleep, Blood Pressure, & Treatment Symptoms || Research Roundup

Tick-tock, it's our biological clock. Like many people, this phrase might make you think about aging or reproductive age; so clocks on something of a macro-scale over our lifespan. Actually, many processes inside our bodies are regulated on more of a micro-scale by our biological clock.

Once thought of as being just inside our brain, countless genetically controlled clocks tick inside different parts of our bodies, such as the liver, kidneys, and heart. Among other things, they initiate many metabolic processes, ensuring that these occur at the optimal time of day. Internal processes that are triggered on a daily cycle are referred to as ‘circadian,’ and these are traditionally linked to the light/dark cycle.

Today, we will look at some classic research on gene variations in the PER gene and how that affects if you are a ‘morning lark’ or ‘night owl’ and fast forward to research that has come out in the last few months that has shown that PER variants can even alter disease risk and response to medical treatments.

1. A Length Polymorphism in the Circadian Clock Gene PER3 is Linked to Delayed Sleep Phase and Extreme Diurnal Preference
2. Genetic Variants Predict Optimal Timing of Radiotherapy to Reduce Side-effects in Breast Cancer Patients
3. Female C57BL/6J in Mice Lacking the Circadian Clock Protein PER1 are Protected from Non-dipping Hypertension

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