If one wants to get the most out of their body, timing is crucial. Molecular clocks that are made out of proteins control our biorhythm and they need about a day (or more) to round down their cycle. Just like with the tide the concentration and activity of these proteins goes up and down. The regulator of the molecular clocks is located in the brain and is heavily dependent on the presence and absence of light. Scientists discovered a protein that can accelerate and slow the activities of genes rhythmically. A very interesting insight with relevant future impact.Every cell in our body has its own clock. This clock is sensitive to changes in food or body temperature. For a body to function perfectly, the cellular clocks have to be more or less synchronised with the central regulator in the brain, and that’s not always the case. Jetlag, for example, is caused by the fact that the cellular clocks are thrown and get behind on the regulator in the brain. However, a disconnection from the brain can also be useful. Imagine that the central regulator is reset every time you get out of bed for some reason or another in a night.
The metabolism in our body is connected to the biorhythm (see picture). That’s not weird, but until now it’s not been entirely clear how that connection was created. In the scientific journal Cell, two publications have shed new light on this connection. Everything supports the activity of sirtuin 1, which plays a part in the aging process, amongst others.
Scientists have discovered that sirtuin 1 has an important effect on a process regulated by another important protein. This protein, called clock, is supposedly partially responsible for controlling the cellular, biological clock. Through all sorts of operations, clock co-determines which genes are accelerated and which are slowed. This operations all occur on the epigenetic level, on molecules that play a big part in regulating the genetic activity and which are stuck to the DNA.
Apparently sirtuin is to clock as a button which does the exact opposite: what clock accelerates, sirtuin slows and vice versa. This seems no more than logical, because we can only speak of rhythm if there’s not just stimulation, but slowing down too.
Future Vision by Erwin Van Lun on this article
More and more scientific insight is made. In the long term, this insight with ensure that health, food and taxation will be tailored to the individual. Currently science is still very focused on averages. Because that’s currently the only way to explain the workings of medicine. With the individual approach we get (automated) advice on how we can stay as healthy as possible, to be as happy as possible and to get as old as possible. This type of insight, which by the by, match up with the insights we have before the golden days of western science, fit seamlessly into this.