Morning or Late Person ? Just Check Your Hair Strands !

Waking up early for some people can be a struggle every morning, while others don’t complain and get up as if nothing. Why is this ? Is it because these people are lazier than the others ? Not at all ! This all has to do with a tiny portion of the brain, called the suprachiasmatic nucleus, that controls the human body clock. In addition, the RNA strands, process these signals throughout the body in 24 hour cycles. These RNA strands are found throughout the body, but the human hair are the easiest for the scientists to test. A study was then performed, by Makoto Akashi and his colleagues at the Yamaguchi University in Japan, on four different people. They pulled head and beard hair from the four different people every three hours. These people had already reported their preferred time for waking up and eating their meals. The test was then conducted after nine days when the subjects had gotten adapted to their preferred schedules. When researches then tested the genes in the follicles of the people, they found out that body-clock gene activity peaked right after the person had woken up, regardless of what hour it was. This study suggested that the brain "turns on" at different times in the morning for different people.

Believe it or not, disorders of the body clock have been implicated in high blood pressure, diabetes, and even cancer. This has relation to science because up to this date, for example, the cure for cancer has not been found. Scientists can then study about the body clock more and see how exactly it is that it relates to cancer and the other sicknesses, such as high blood pressure and diabetes.

Why do we care about this topic ? Well, for one thing, being a morning or late person, is a serious thing for people. Most people do not like to wake up early, like to sleep in and so forth, and they might not know why it is. Based on this study, this all has to do with the way the mind is programmed and the way that the body clock works. These scientists were just able to figure out that different people have different body clocks and are adjusted to different times. So now, people can test what type of person they are, morning or late, with a strand of their hair, but also it is interesting and important to know how the body clock works. Also, since this has relation to cancer, high blood pressure, and diabetes, the body clock can be studied even more and see if the person is at risk of any of these terrible sicknesses and how the body clock might be affecting these diseases even more if the person already has it. This is an exploration that we should be interested in because many people suffer from these things, including our family, friends, and many other loved ones. We are always there for them when they need anything, but it would be better if cures could be found for them, via learning more information about body clocks, if this is one of the options. Akashi himself mentioned, " I hope that our method will be used for regular health checks in schools and companies to keep healthy clocks."

Source: http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2010/08/100823-sleep-genes-body-clock-science-health/