Research

Hormonal

One week of insufficient sleep (approx. 5.7 hours per 24 hours) disrupts the human blood transcriptome by reducing the number of genes with circadian expression profiles and decreasing their circadian amplitude.

Consistently getting less than 7-8 hours of sleep for even one week changes how your genes express themselves, specifically dampening the natural daily rhythms of immune and metabolic genes. This makes your body more vulnerable to stress and inflammation. Prioritize consistent sleep duration, not just occasional recovery.

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Insufficient sleep also reduced the number of genes with a circadian expression profile from 1,855 to 1,481, reduced the circadian amplitude of these genes...
Carla S. Möller‐Levet et al. · Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences · 2013

Why this rating

Randomized crossover design with controlled constant routine protocol, though limited to 26 participants.

Source

Effects of insufficient sleep on circadian rhythmicity and expression amplitude of the human blood transcriptome

Carla S. Möller‐Levet et al. · Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences · 2013

DOI 10.1073/pnas.1217154110

crossover · n=26Cited 578×
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DOI resolved against Crossref · corpus check 2026-06-10

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