Mobile phones have become ubiquitous today. The portable device has not only revolutionised the way we communicate with each other, but offered a new way to consume content. These devises have become so popular that many of the users are going to bed with their phones at their sides. Experts have pointed out that using these devices at night time can mess with our body clock. But can this process also make us fat? Some scientists claim it can happen and have given arguments in support of it.
"Our sleep-wake cycles, alertness, mood, activity levels, core body temperature, and appetite fluctuate over the course of each day, under the control of the so-called 'master clock' in the brain," Becky Conway-Campbell, a research fellow at the Bristol Medical School at the University of Bristol in the UK, told Newsweek.
"Other clocks throughout the body are termed peripheral oscillators, synchronised by neural and hormonal signals. One of the more powerful hormonal synchronising signals is via large surges of cortisol (often known as the 'stress hormone') released from the adrenal glands in the early morning hours each day," the researcher explained.
Exposure to artificial light can lead to modification in the daily cortisol burst. This is known as circadian misalignment.
"As a population, we are now plagued by circadian disruption, by global light pollution that can be detected by satellites, and by the use of blue-light emitting devices late at night. This circadian misalignment also disrupts the hormonal cycles that govern our body, leading to a range of adverse side-effects. That may include symptoms such as brain fog, lethargy, chills in the daytime, overheating in the middle of the night, lack of appetite early in the day and excessive consumption later on," said Ms Conway-Campbell.
To prove their theory, her team gave cortisol-like hormones to a group of rats, both when their body clocks were in sync and when they weren't.
The rats who were in sync ate 88.4 per cent of their daily food intake during their active phase and only 11.6 per cent during their inactive phase. The group with out-of-sync body clock ate 53.8 per cent of their daily calories during their inactive phase, without an increase of activity during this time.
The study was published in the journal Nature Communications Biology on September 29.
However, the team said more work needs to be done to understand the impact of these hormonal disruptions in humans and what can be done to mitigate their negative effects.
