The Circadian Code by Dr. Satchin Panda outlines the importance of the body's internal clock and how it affects various physiological processes. The book explains how every organ and cell in the body has its own circadian rhythm and how these rhythms can be optimized through lifestyle changes such as time-restricted eating, proper sleep schedules, and synchronized exercise. Dr. Panda's methods aim to prevent and alleviate chronic ailments like diabetes, cancer, and dementia, as well as digestive conditions. The book provides a concrete plan to enhance weight loss, improve sleep, optimize exercise, and manage technology to align with the body's natural rhythm[1][3][4].
In *The Circadian Diabetes Code*, Dr. Satchin Panda presents a groundbreaking approach to managing and reversing diabetes by focusing on when, rather than what, you eat. The book emphasizes the importance of aligning daily activities like eating, sleeping, and exercising with the body's natural circadian rhythm. This approach can help optimize blood glucose levels, reduce the risk of heart disease and obesity, and enhance overall health.
Our modern lifestyles mean that most of us don’t live our lives in sync with our circadian rhythms, which puts our health and well-being at risk. Eating and sleeping at the right time are important tools to help us align our circadian rhythms and reduce our risk of chronic disease.
In this episode, circadian rhythm expert Prof. Satchin Panda will tell us how light and food act as master regulators of our body clock, how aligning our lifestyles with our body clock can improve our health, mood and energy levels and how to do this in practice.
Satchin is a world-leading expert in the field of circadian rhythm research. He’s associate professor at the prestigious SALK institute, he’s recipient of the Dana Foundation Award in brain and immune system imaging and he’s also the author of two best-selling books, The Circadian Code and The Circadian Diabetes Code.
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Timecodes:
00:00 Introduction
01:00 Quickfire questions
03:02 What are circadian rhythms?
03:48 How do we know about circadian rhythms?
04:44 Are all body parts on a 24 hour clock?
06:40 How the body enters sleep mode
09:25 What happens during sleep?
12:08 Why you’re not sleeping enough
13:30 The surprising impact of daylight savings time
17:00 Circadian rhythms aren’t just about light
19:55 The dangers of shift work
21:20 Should you go to bed at sunset?
25:40 Why should stop snacking at night
26:10 Satchin’s famous mice study
33:00 The best eating window for health
37:27 Does intermittent fasting promote better food choices?
40:40 Should you drink black coffee when you wake up?
Satchin’s books:
Books by our ZOE Scientists:
Studies referenced in today’s episode:
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Effects of 3 months of 10-h per-day time-restricted eating and 3 months of follow-up on bodyweight and cardiometabolic health in Danish individuals at high risk of type 2 diabetes: the RESET single-centre, parallel, superiority, open-label, randomised controlled trial, published in Lancet Healthy Longevity
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Neuronal reprogramming of mouse and human fibroblasts using transcription factors involved in suprachiasmatic nucleus development, published iScience
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Learning from circadian rhythm to transform cancer prevention, prognosis, and survivorship care, published in Trends Cancer
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The Untapped Potential of Circadian Timing as a Variable for Discoveries and Reproducibility, published in Cell Mol Gastroenterol Hepato
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Episode transcripts are available here.
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