Does chronic jet lag incre ase r i sk of ca n cer?

Abstract

Disrupted circadian rhythms negatively affect physiology and elevate the risk of immune and proliferative diseases [1]. The master timekeeper located in the suprachiasmatic nucleus of the hypothalamus is entrained by light to regulate peripheral clocks. Frequent trans-meridian flights or night-shift work challenges the circadian clock, and modeling this in mice through ‘chronic jet lag' accelerates the growth of osteosarcoma [2]. We recently described that chronic jet lag in mice, induced by advancing the light-dark cycle over long periods, alters brain transcriptomes that have been linked to cancer-related pathways; our results suggest that chronic jet lag may increase susceptibility to cancer by altering molecular and metabolic processes [3]. In another study in mice, we determined that chronic jet lag changes the expression of genes related to glioma (a brain tumor) in several brain regions (nucleus accumbens, hippocampus, prefrontal cortex, hypothalamus and striatum) of wild-type and mutant (clock gene knockout) mice