The food-energy cellular connection revealed

This article helps us understand why shift workers are more at risk of a raft of diseases. Night duty workers are more at risk of breast cancer. More reasons why changing the way that midwives work leads to better outcomes. This time it's midwives who benefit by coming off shift work and working one to one or in caseload models with childbearing women. Maternity service managers please take note.

"Shift workers face a 100 percent increase in the risk for obesity and its consequences, such as high blood pressure, insulin resistance and an increased risk of heart attacks," says Howard Hughes Medical Investigator Ronald M. Evans, Ph.D., a professor in the Salk Institute's Gene Expression Laboratory.

The researchers' findings, which are published in the Oct. 16, 2009, issue of Science, could have far-reaching implications, from providing a better understanding how nutrition and gene expression are linked, to creating new ways to treat obesity, diabetes and other related diseases. "It is estimated that the activity of up to 15 percent of our genes is under the direct control of biological clocks," says Evans. "Our work provides a conceptual way to link nutrition and energy regulation to the genome."

The food-energy cellular connection revealed

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