The investigators piloted the characterization of the human chronobiome. Now, this line of research is extended to explore physiological chronobiome modulated by sex, age and under evoked conditions.
"Is your body clock important? Absolutely. Just ask any morning lark who lives with a night owl, or vice versa". This quote from a piece published in the Philadelphia Inquirer about the investigator's work illustrates the importance of time in one's personal preferences \[https://www.inquirer.com/health/chronobiome-body-clock-university-pennsylvania-20190307.html\]. Several decades of research have found out that how well a person functions, very much depends on how much this person is in harmony with her/his own preferences and environment. This harmony is acutely disturbed when one travels quickly across several time zones, because suddenly the body's physiology is still following the departure time but the arrival time tells the body something different. As a result, travelers often experience sleep problems and indigestion, which usually disappear after a couple of days. This is different in long-term shift workers for whom work outside of the typical daylight hours means that they have a higher risk for diseases including cardiovascular diseases, diabetes and cancer. Another observation has been that many diseases occur or worsen at a specific time of day. Heart attacks, for example, most often occur when patients wake up in the morning. Shortness of breath peaks at 4 am in the morning for patients with asthma. Intriguingly, more and more studies suggest that time of day matters how effective drugs work and how many side effects one might experience. To study this the investigators started to describe the human chronobiome, which foremost looks at time of day differences of a person's physiology, for example, in the small pilot study the investigators saw a difference in break down products, or metabolites, between mornings and evenings. Now, in this present study, the investigators wish to extend the understanding how the human chronobiome differs between healthy men and women, healthy young and old and how it reacts to a fatty meal challenge. This knowledge will help the investigators to say when a finding can still be considered normal or maybe indicates a first sign of disease. The novelty of this approach is that the investigators measure long enough to understand the role of time of day for a person's chronobiome, that the investigators measure many things to obtain a comprehensive representation of a person's chronobiome, that every measure is timestamped, and that the investigators ask participants to eat fatty meals to see how the chronobiome changes.
Study Type
INTERVENTIONAL
Allocation
NA
Purpose
OTHER
Masking
NONE
Enrollment
48
The intervention consists of a fatty meal
Institute for Translational Medicine and Therapeutics (ITMAT), University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States
Percent difference in the number of proteins with post-translational modifications found in blood samples from young versus old participants
High-throughput proteomics analysis determines the number of proteins with and without post-translational modifications. This will explore what effect age has on the number of proteins with post-translational modifications.
Time frame: 48 hours
Percent difference in the number of proteins with post-translational modifications found in blood samples from female versus male participants
High-throughput proteomics analysis determines the number of proteins with and without post-translational modifications. This will explore what effect sex has on the number of proteins with post-translational modifications.
Time frame: 48 hours
Percent difference in the number of proteins with post-translational modifications found in blood samples from female versus male participants and by age
High-throughput proteomics analysis determines the number of proteins with and without post-translational modifications. This will explore whether an interaction between age and sex has an effect on the number of proteins with post-translational modifications.
Time frame: 48 hours
Percent difference in environmental light exposure between young versus old participants
Wrist actigraphy collects personal light exposure
Time frame: 48 hours
Percent difference in environmental light exposure between young versus old participants and by sex
Wrist actigraphy collects personal light exposure
Time frame: 48 hours
Percent difference in physical activity between young versus old participants
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Wrist actigraphy records accelerometer data to calculate physical activity
Time frame: 48 hours
Percent difference in physical activity between young versus old participants and by sex
Wrist actigraphy records accelerometer data to calculate physical activity
Time frame: 48 hours
Percent difference in systolic blood pressure readings between young versus old participants
Ambulatory blood pressure measurements (ABPM) collect blood pressure readings
Time frame: 48 hours
Percent difference in systolic blood pressure readings between young versus old participants and by sex
Ambulatory blood pressure measurements (ABPM) collect blood pressure readings
Time frame: 48 hours