Category Archives: Recommendation

Recommendation

Benefits of Exercise

Image

 

Untitled

The main idea of the graph is that Exercise (first red box) affects a variety of things (second red box), such as melatonin(shown in red). The graph then shows that because exercise affects melatonin levels, which are connected with the sleep/wake cycle(last red box), exercise affects sleep patterns.

Citation:

Escames, G., Ozturk, G., Baño-Otálora, B., Pozo, M. J., Madrid, J. A., Reiter, R. J., & … Acuña-Castroviejo, D. (2012). Exercise and melatonin in humans: reciprocal benefits. Journal Of Pineal Research, 52(1), 1-11. doi:10.1111/j.1600-079X.2011.00924.x

 

Goal:

The goal of the study was to show how exercise might affect melatonin rhythms and that increased physical exercise can actually improve many everyday activities and keep circadian rhythms in sync.

 

Hypothesis:

Exercise can affect melatonin levels in a way that can increase physical performance by keeping circadian rhythms in the body leveled.

 

Measured:

The role of melatonin was measured and the effect of physical exercise on the circadian rhythms was measured.

 

Figure:

This figure shows the effect that melatonin and exercise has on the circadian system. This figure shows circadian clocks, inputs, and outputs, which are three of the major components of the hypothalamus. This figure supports the hypothesis because the figure clearly demonstrates how exercise can effect melatonin which then can effect the circadian rhythms.

 

Findings:

The researchers concluded that according to the data it is clear that exercise and melatonin have a large effect of circadian rhythms.

 

Question:

How does the intensity of the exercise correspond to melatonin levels?

Recommendation

Delaying School

The goal of this study is to measure the impact of delaying school by 30-minutes (8-8:30am) and determine its effects on the students overall behavior and also sleep duration. The hypothesized that starting the day 30 minutes later would increase overall mood and performance by letting students sleep in later. The researchers measured the sleep-wake schedule of 201 students from 9-12th graders at a private boarding school in New England. They took a survey measuring the average amount of sleep a student got when school started at a normal time, and compared this to how much sleep they would get after the later start time was implemented.

The figure above looks at two different surveys, 1=before delayed start time and 2=after delayed start time. It asked students in “A” if they felt too tired to “do schoolwork”, “play sports” or “socialize” and in “B” it asked them if they felt unmotivated to do the same activities as in “A” and it measured the results as a percentage of students in the experiment. This shows that with the later schedule, student’s behavior becomes more motivated and not as tired. In the article it also explains that student’s sleep duration increased more than just the amount of the delay. In fact, it said that students were going to sleep on average 18 minutes earlier and sleep duration increased by 45 minutes.

How did they make sure there was no biases when asking students how motivated they were to socialize? In other words, teenagers are often very cautious about fitting in, and they may not answer truthfully on a survey asking about how social they are.

Citation:

Owens, J., Belon, K., & Moss, P. (2010). Impact Of Delaying School Start Time On Adolescent Sleep, Mood, And Behavior. Archives of Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine, 608-614. Retrieved September 30, 2014.

Recommendation

Food’s Effect on Circadian Rhythm

The goal of this study was to see if using a 24 hour cycle of feeding could induce a change in the main biological clocks of rats by altering their peripheral tissues’ biological clocks. The scientists believed that there would be a significant change in the main biological clocks of the rats as it would be evolutionarily beneficial to be awake when food is available. The scientists measured core body temperatures of the rats at various times. They also measured the abundance of mRNA in cells upon the completion of the experiment by euthanizing the rats at various times of the feeding cycle.

The figure shows the core body temperature for the rats at various times of day, and thus various times of the feeding cycle. Following the line graph shows that the body temperature arose in anticipation of food and lowered when no food was expected. This trend allows us to add evidence to the hypothesis because an increase in body temperature at an atypical time for rats due to food indicates that the rats’ biological clocks have found a new rhythm that runs on a different schedule than the sun. The regular introduction of food showed that the liver and other organs are on a different biological clock than the rest of the body. The experiment also showed that given enough time, the main biological clock of a rat will change based on a food schedule. These findings could be extrapolated to people, and the necessity of a regular breakfast, lunch, and dinner for optimal daily performance. My question for the author of this study would be, have they attempted to do a study on people with a similar idea of study? For example, looking at how a person who eats on a regular schedule compares to a person who eats irregular times.

Sabath, E. (2014). Food entrains clock genes but not metabolic genes in the liver of suprachiasmatic nucleus lesioned rats. FEBS Letters, 588(17), 3104-3110. Retrieved September 30, 2014, from http://nw7pf8as2n.search.serialssolutions.com/?url_ver=Z39.88-2003&ctx_ver=Z39.88-2003&ctx_enc=info:ofi/enc:UTF-8&rft_id=info:doi/10.1016/j.febslet.2014.06.045&rft_val_fmt=info:ofi/fmt:kev:mtx:journal&rft.genre=article&rft.aulast=Sabath&rft.aufirst=E.&rft.issn=00145793&rft.volume=588&rft.issue=17&rft.date=2014&rft.spage=3104&rft.epage=3110&rft.pages=3104-3110&rft.artnum=&rft.title=FEBS Letters&rft.atitle=Food entrains clock genes but not metabolic genes in the liver of suprachiasmatic nucleus lesioned rats&rfr_id=info:sid/Elsevier:Scopus