Don’t eat, don’t sleep, don’t waste a second of it
Adjusting meal times can help travellers recover from jet lag, a study suggests.
Harvard University researchers believe the brain has a second “feeding clock” which keeps track of meal-times, rather than daytime, after studying mice.
When food is scarce, the feeding clock overrides the master clock, keeping animals awake until they find food.
Thus, shift workers and travellers can keep tiredness at bay by not eating, they suggest in the journal Science.
Our daily sleep cycles, behaviour and metabolism are governed by a powerful master clock, which resides in an area of the brain known as the suprachiasmatic nucleus.
Disruption of these “circadian” rhythms have been shown to be linked with insomnia, depression, heart disease, cancer and neurodegenerative disorders.
This “circadian” clock is highly sensitive to daylight. But scientists have for several years been aware of a second “feeding” clock which is sensitive to our eating patterns.
