News release

From: The University of Queensland

Tick tock: How shift work and irregular eating impacts your liver body clock

Shift work and irregular eating patterns could affect liver function and disrupt its delicate circadian rhythm, University of Queensland researchers have found.

Dr Meltem Weger from UQ’s Institute for Molecular Bioscience said the body has various circadian clocks that regulate critical biological processes including liver function.

She said the liver operates its own body clock, releasing proteins in a 24-hour rhythm, and disruptions to this cycle are linked with chronic conditions such as obesity.

“The liver is one of the most important organs in the body, producing and exporting most major proteins circulating our blood,” Dr Weger said.

“This is critical to a variety of functions including regulating metabolism, inflammation and energy balance, but these liver proteins aren’t released at the same levels all the time.”

Researchers found the liver releases proteins into the bloodstream in timed waves, following a 24-hour rhythm driven by the body clock and influenced by factors such as when a person eats.

“These are important findings, because they challenge the idea the liver releases proteins into the blood at a consistent pace,’’ Dr Weger said.

“This means disruptions to daily routines such as shift work or irregular eating can affect liver function.

“Having a greater understanding of the liver’s body clock could reshape our knowledge about nutrition, shift work, and disease prevention.’’

Dr Benjamin Weger from UQ’s Institute for Molecular Bioscience said this research is an important step towards understanding how the liver’s body clock might be linked to obesity.

“We don’t yet fully understand how disruptions in the body’s liver clock can lead to disease, but it’s clear there are health implications if these rhythms are disrupted,” Dr Weger said.

“Our work underscores that the body’s internal clock, metabolism and liver function are deeply intertwined.

“This study is the first to describe rhythms in protein secretion and explain how they form at the molecular level, helping us understand how they are affected by daily routines.”

Researchers found that the timing of food intake plays a critical role in maintaining the natural rhythm of the liver to secrete proteins.

“We saw that people who ate regular meals maintained healthy liver rhythms but those who sipped a balanced nutrition drink every hour lost those rhythms,” Dr Weger said.

Associate Professor Frederic Gachon from UQ’s Institute for Molecular Bioscience said researchers’ next steps are to gain a deeper understanding of why the liver’s internal body clock is critical to staying healthy and preventing chronic disease.

The research is published in Nature Metabolism.