Doing the night shift? Here are the dangers you face by disrupting your body clock

The “circadian clock” which governs the day-night cycle guides sleep and eating patterns, hormones and even body temperature. It doesn’t pay to mess with it.

Messing with your body’s clock is dangerous business. In fact, it could make you sick or worse. The inner timekeeper, dubbed the “circadian clock”, governs the day-night cycle that guides sleep and eating patterns, hormones and even body temperature. A recent research suggested that our muscles measure the time of day.

It is important enough that the Nobel Medicine Prize was awarded on Monday to three US scientists whose work illuminated the fundamentals of how it ticks. The trio identified genes that regulate the clock, and the mechanism by which light can synchronise it. Yet humans have a long history of overriding the circadian-driven need for sleep, Russell Foster, a professor of circadian neuroscience at Oxford University says the most obvious example being night work.

Such tinkering with Mother Nature can have serious consequences ranging from impulsive behaviour to life-threatening conditions such as obesity and cancer, the experts say. Just look at the poor health records of shift workers such as nurses or factory labourers. The World Health Organization has already raised the red flag, with a 2007 report noting that “circadian disruption” is “probably carcinogenic” — which means cancer-causing.

Tinkering with your body clock can have serious consequences ranging from impulsive behaviour to life-threatening conditions such as obesity and cancer.

An ‘exciting stage’

When workers force themselves to stay awake, it triggers the release of stress hormones such as cortisol — the same one that rushes into your blood in a life-or-death situation. The chemicals may keep you on your feet, but they are a bargain with the devil. For example, cortisol works to suppress the immune system and in the long run can make you more susceptible to a range of illnesses, including cancer.

Such a lifestyle also opens one up to eating outside of normal times, when the body’s metabolism might be lower and the calories are more likely to be converted into fat instead of being burnt up. “You’re raising your heart rate, raising your blood pressure and insulin levels at a time that you would not ordinarily do that,” says Hugh Piggins, a neuroscience professor at the University of Manchester. “You’re body is basically not ready for it and you’re giving it a bit of an insult.”

Even short-term disruptions of the circadian clock can wreak havoc with your body. Just think jet lag. Flying from Paris to Los Angeles deposits travellers nine hours earlier in time, upending eating and sleeping patterns. The results can be blunted interaction with the world and a lack of empathy, complex thinking, or even clear memories. In such a state, people can do “overly impulsive things — jump the red traffic light and fail to see the consequences of actions,” explained Foster.

Better understanding of the workings of the body clock has opened up a fascinating field of scientific quest. Circadian dysfunction has been linked to depression, bipolar disorder, cognitive function, memory formation and even some neurological diseases.

Over the past two decades, scientists have been studying how the timing of administering a medicine can impact how well it works. Already, they have found that changing the timing can reduce the toxicity of some compounds. “Now we are moving to the exciting stage where we can start translating some of this knowledge into understanding what happens when these systems go wrong and more importantly to develop new therapeutic interventions,” Foster said.

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