Sleep, circadian rhythms and metabolism

Abstract

Obesity and cardiometabolic disease are closely linked disorders that have recently accelerated throughout the industrialized world, coincident with more sedentary lifestyle and poor nutrition; however a complete understanding of the environmental precipitants underlying metabolic disease remains obscure. Mounting evidence from epidemiological studies has pointed towards a novel yet less appreciated factor that correlates with the recent expansion of these epidemics, namely, the introduction of artificial light and work at night-time, in addition to the rise in sleep curtailment. At the physiological level, it has been well-documented that many processes, including glucose and lipid metabolism, body temperature, and corticosterone production vary in a circadian fashion; moreover, there is an established temporal variation to health catastrophes such as myocardial infarction, cerebrovascular accident, and hypertensive crises. Over the past decade, major advances have emerged in our understanding of the underlying molecular mechanisms linking circadian rhythms, sleep, and metabolism, primarily through studies in experimental genetic models that became available following the landmark discovery of the first mammalian circadian clock gene Clock in 1997 [1, 2]. © 2011 Springer Science+Business Media, LLC.