Circadian Rhythm and Metabolic Health

A talk pitched at a metabolic health audience, on how the daily clock governs appetite, digestion and the handling of glucose. The central observation is one most clinicians recognise but few act on. The same meal produces a measurably different metabolic response at eight in the morning than at ten at night, because the machinery that processes it is not equally switched on at both hours.

Dr Panda traces this back to the discovery that the liver clock follows feeding time rather than light, and forward into the whole genome time series studies his group has run across more than sixty tissues. Those datasets showed which genes and pathways rise and fall in each organ through the day, and made clear how much of metabolism is scheduled rather than continuous. They also pointed to something clinically useful, which is that the efficacy and side effect profile of many drugs may depend on the hour they are given.

Relevant to anyone working on obesity, prediabetes or type 2 diabetes who wants timing added to the usual levers of diet composition and exercise.