Research

Hormonal

Simulated night-shift work induces 24-hour rhythms in circulating metabolites (including amino acids and lipids) that are driven by externally imposed behavioral time cues (sleep/wake, feeding/fasting) rather than the central suprachiasmatic nuclei (SCN) circadian pacemaker.

If you work night shifts, your body's metabolic rhythms (how it processes fats and proteins) are likely shifting to match your sleep and eating schedule, not your internal biological clock. This misalignment is a key driver of metabolic risk. To mitigate this, consider aligning your eating windows strictly with your awake hours (time-restricted feeding) and maintaining consistent sleep schedules, as these behavioral cues strongly influence peripheral metabolism.

GoodSupportsHIGH confidence
95% of the metabolites with a 24-h rhythmicity showed rhythms that were driven by behavioral time cues externally imposed during the preceding simulated shift schedule rather than being driven by the central SCN circadian clock.
Debra J. Skene et al. · Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences · 2018

Why this rating

Controlled laboratory study with targeted metabolomics, though sample size is small (n=14).

Source

Separation of circadian- and behavior-driven metabolite rhythms in humans provides a window on peripheral oscillators and metabolism

Debra J. Skene et al. · Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences · 2018

DOI 10.1073/pnas.1801183115

rct · n=14Cited 178×
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DOI resolved against Crossref · corpus check 2026-06-10

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