Why night shift and jet lag make you feel so bad

Working night shift or struggling to get over jet lag prevent genes in the body from switching on at their natural times and could suppress the immune system, scientists believe.

Jet lag and shift work don't just make you tired, they are actually damaging your body and can switch off genes linked to the immune system, scientists have found.

Researchers who altered the natural cycle of volunteers until they were sleeping during the daytime found that certain genes were not switching on.

Some of these genes were responsible for releasing ‘products’ which keep the immune system working properly.

Previous studies have shown that disrupting the body clock has a serious impact on health raising the risk of heart attacks and strokes by more than 40 per cent.

Around 6 per cent of the genes of the body are directly linked to our internal clocks or circadian rhythm, and switch on at certain times of the day or night.

Scientists from the Sleep Research Centre at the University of Surrey found that 97 per cent of these ‘clock’ genes became out of sync when sleep patterns deviated from the norm.

"This really explains why we feel so bad during jet lag, or if we have to work irregular shifts,” Dr Simon Archer, from the School of Biosciences and Medicine.

Researchers placed twenty-two participants on a 28-hour day in a controlled environment without a natural light-dark cycle.

As a result, their sleep-wake cycle was delayed by four hours each day, until sleep occurred 12 hours out of sync with their brain clock and in the middle of what would have been their normal ‘daytime’.

The team then collected blood samples to measure the participants’ rhythms of gene expression.

Senior author Professor Derk-Jan Dijk said changes in sleeping patterns had ‘dampened down’ the natural effect of the genes.

“We know that shift work is associated with negative health consequences such as cardiovascular problems and that we don’t feel well when we’re jetlagged.

“This shows how important that rhythmicity is for our body and how much of an impact it can have on us when this natural cycle is altered.

“I don’t think in our society we can’t do without shift work but we can start to think about how we mitigate the impact and understand how it affects our bodies.”

It is believed some of the genes need darkness to switch on.

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