International travellers, shift workers and even people suffering from obesity-related conditions stand to benefit from a key discovery of two crucial genes that contribute to the body’s internal clock.<\/p>\n
Senior scientist Chris Liddle, from the Westmead Millennium Institute for Medical\u00a0Research, the University of Sydney, worked with a team from the Salk Institute based in\u00a0California, beating other teams from around the world racing to find the core elements of\u00a0the biological, or circadian clock. Their findings are published in Nature on May 3.<\/p>\n
The Circadian clock is an internal daily body clock that controls alertness, appetite, sleep\u00a0timing and hormone secretions.<\/p>\n
Work can now focus on developing drugs to target the two receptors identified in this\u00a0study, and provide relief for those affected by disrupted circadian rhythms.<\/p>\n
\u201cPeople with circadian disturbances tend to have a higher incidence of obesity, diabetes\u00a0and related metabolic disorders,\u201d said Professor Liddle. \u201cIt is much more than simply a\u00a0problem of disturbed sleep\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is a very exciting discovery. These receptors are core elements of the clock that\u00a0we can potentially use drugs on.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
Professor Liddle, who is a liver expert and has worked on liver genes for more than a\u00a0decade with researchers at the Salk Institute, said the team had also been able to show\u00a0the receptors were important in controlling the liver metabolism of fats and other genes\u00a0related to diet, nutrition, digestion and energy expenditure.<\/p>\n
\u201cPeople tend to think that the clock is just something that happens in the brain, like\u00a0when you feel wide awake or when you want to sleep or are suffering from jet-lag. But\u00a0it\u201fs a whole-body issue. Literally, you do not feel like exercising and your metabolism\u00a0slows when you are in that part of the cycle. This contributes to obesity-related\u00a0problems\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen you fly overseas, not only do you wake up in the middle of the night, you probably\u00a0notice you want to eat in the middle of the night, and that during the day you have\u00a0reduced energy. The liver is a key player in the regulation of energy and we now\u00a0understand quite a bit more how liver genes \u201eclock in\u201f to the circadian cycle\u201d.\u00a0Support life saving medical research today and make a donation (through our\u00a0fundraising body, Westmead Medical Research Foundation) at wmrf.org.au.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
International travellers, shift workers and even people suffering from obesity-related conditions stand to benefit from a key discovery of two crucial genes that contribute to the body’s internal clock. Senior scientist Chris Liddle, from the Westmead Millennium Institute for Medical\u00a0Research, the University of Sydney, worked with a team from the Salk Institute based in\u00a0California, beating […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":2446,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","ast-disable-related-posts":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"default","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"default","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"set","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}}},"categories":[19],"class_list":["post-2472","news","type-news","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-cat-news"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wimr.org.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/2472","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wimr.org.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wimr.org.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/news"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wimr.org.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2446"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wimr.org.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2472"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wimr.org.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2472"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}