What an All-Nighter Does to Your Blood

Pulling an all-nighter just once can disrupt levels and time of day patterns of more than 100 proteins in the blood, including those that influence blood sugar, energy metabolism, and immune function, according to new University of Colorado Boulder research published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) this week. “This tells us that when we experience things like jet lag or a couple of nights of shift work, we very rapidly alter our normal physiology in a way that if sustained can be detrimental to our health,” said senior author Kenneth Wright, director of the Sleep and Chronobiology Laboratory and professor in the Department of Integrative Physiology. The study is the first to examine how protein levels in human blood, also known as the plasma proteome, vary over a 24-hour period and how altered sleep and meal timing affects them. It also pinpointed 30 distinct proteins that, regardless of sleep and meal timing, vary depending upon what time it is. The findings could open the door for developing new treatments for night shift workers, who make up about 20 percent of the global workforce and are at higher risk for diabetes and cancer. It could also enable doctors to precisely time administration of drugs, vaccines and diagnostic tests around the circadian clock. Even without the glow of electronics at night, changes in protein patterns were rapid and widespread. “This shows that the problem is not just light at night,” Wright said. “When people eat at the wrong time or are awake at the wrong time that can have consequences too.” https://www.technologynetworks.com/applied-sciences/news/what-an-all-nighter-does-to-your-blood-303159?utm_campaign=Newsletter_TN_BreakingScienceNews&utm_source=hs_email&utm_medium=email&utm_content=63111297&_hsenc=p2ANqtz-9j9e7I6vHiBGn0IFSO5C-RsMsRwCKvYaHD0k75JyVPHRt_1WAaGw53k-1hWXlakNNfM8VFMx1iELh8PRcDDRWboXuutQ&_hsmi=63111297