This week a new study published online ahead of print in PNAS found that one week of insufficient sleep alters gene expression in human blood cells. “It’s an indication that sleep disruption or sleep restriction is doing more than just making you tired,” principal investigator Derk-Jan Dijk, PhD, tnew the Guardian. The study also reports that sleep loss reduces the amplitude of circadian rhythms in gene expression and intensifies the effects of subsequent acute total sleep loss on gene expression. The authors concluded that the identified biological processes may be involved with the negative effects of sleep loss on health.
