people who regularly sleep for over 11 hours or less than four hours in a day are 2-3 times more likely to have the incurable lung disease, pulmonary fibrosis, compared to those that sleep for seven hours, according to a study.The study, published in the journal PNAS, also shows that tuning the body clock reduces fibrosis or lung scarring in cell studies, revealing a potential target for this killer disease.
The clock drives 24-hour cycles in many processes such as sleeping, hormone secretion, and metabolism. In the lungs, the clock is mainly located in the main air carrying passages the airways.However, the team discovered that in people with lung fibrosis, these clock oscillations extend out to the small air spaces, called alveoli.
"Pulmonary fibrosis is a devastating condition which is incurable at present," said john Blaikley from The university of Manchester, who led the project."Therefore, the discovery that the body clock is potentially a key player potentially opens new ways to treat or prevent the condition," Blaikley said in a statement. Studies in mice revealed that by altering the clock mechanism it was possible to disrupt the fibrotic process making the animals more likely to develop pulmonary fibrosis.
