If you want to understand why so many Silicon Valley techies are intermittently fasting, it helps to know the circadian rhythms of mutant hamsters, said Emily Manoogian.
Manoogian spent her college and postgraduate years flashing lights at these furry rodents to monkey with their suprachiasmatic nucleus, which coordinates the daily rhythms of sleep and wakefulness. When studying a hamster species with a genetic mutation to their circadian clock, she and her colleagues found that light-shifting their rhythms had dramatic implications for weight gain and the development of liver disease.
Working with these hamsters convinced the California native, who entered college as an aspiring veterinarian, to focus on neuroendocrinology. “It was like I was in a room with a bunch of acquaintances and then I met my best friend,” she said.
Now a staff scientist at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies, Manoogian is a full-time chronobiologist. She has traded in her strobing lights and hamsters for studying time-restricted eating in nurses and other shift workers who operate on atypical circadian rhythms and subsequently face higher risks for chronic metabolic diseases and cancer. She found that when firefighters instituted a 10-hour restricted eating schedule, their blood pressure dropped and other health indicators improved.
“Who you are is so different at different times of day,” she said. “Your cognitive ability, your mood, your response to things, your muscle strength, your heart function — everything changes across the day.”
— O. Rose Broderick
