The Gut Bacteria, Hypertension and Sleep Apnea Connection

The connections between the most common form of sleep apnea, obstructive sleep apnea, and hypertension are already well established. In a recent study, researchers present evidence suggesting that gut bacteria balance may also be a factor linking those two common health conditions. Published in the Journal of Clinical Sleep Medicine, the study reviewed data from a number of studies and found that gut dysbiosis, an imbalance in the gut microbiome, was common to both hypertension and sleep apnea. Establishing a link between gut bacteria, hypertension and sleep apnea could lead to improved prevention and treatment plans for these conditions.

Understanding the links between gut bacteria, hypertension and sleep apnea and high blood pressure has the potential to yield better prevention and more targeted treatment. An important take-away that you can use today to promote better sleep and better health is the overall importance of diet.

Ultra-processed foods are destructive to the gut microbiome. Eating a healthy, well-balanced whole food diet promotes healthy, well-balanced gut bacteria. Combine that healthy diet with sufficient physical activity each day and you’ll sleep better at night while reducing your risk for numerous diseases and chronic health conditions, including hypertension and sleep apnea.

https://www.chronobiology.com/new-link-discovered-gut-bacteria-hypertension-and-sleep-apnea/

Updates: ICER & Chronoprakriti Pvt. Ltd.

Institute of Chronobiology Education & Research (ICER)

Since 2016 ICER is trying at all possible levels to get established on the fronts of academics, research and outreach activities. Following are some milestones I would like to enlist before announcing the new entity.

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Newsletter: Monthly publication since September 2018

Academic courses: Tried all possibilities, conducted till pre-covid era. Now not functional

Research: Submitted two proposals (AYUSH, BIRAC). Funding still awaited

Conferences: 2 National, 1 International 

Publication: Nil

Workshops: Conducted till pre-covid era. Now not functional

Textbook: Draft ready, Shikshan Prasarak Mandali (SPM) agreed to publish under their banner

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Chronoprakriti Pvt. Ltd.

Private company formation in 2021 to unburden ICER from professional and outreach activities.

Hope to initiate the consultancy by launching the interactive website soon. 

www.chronoprakriti.com

We will be launching an interactive website soon (most probably on, Dashahara 15th October 2021). We will provide all our paid services through this website. 

Chronoprakriti is a combination of Chronotype and Prakriti type which will provide personalized recommendations based on chronobiological as well as Ayurvedic understanding of body composition. 

I hope we will make this site a comprehensive resource about chronomedicine and chronotherapy

Chronobiology textbook

Introduction to Chronobiology is written for undergraduate students. It will be published by Late Prin. B .V .Bhide Foundation of Shikshan Prasarak Mandali, Pune. The book can be purchased by writing mail at chronobiology2017@gmail.com

Online survey to understand Impact of Online Education on Health

 An online survey by Shikshan Prasarak Mandali's Late Prin. B. V. Bhide Foundation: 

The COVID-19 pandemic forced universities around the world to shut down their campuses indefinitely and adopt online platforms for their educational activities. The colleges were not prepared for such a drastic change. Though there have been a lot of advances in information communication technology (ICT) in the last few decades and several online platforms to support online education were available, still it was a challenge for universities to complete their educational activities using an online platform in stipulated time period.

Additionally, professors and students faced a wide range of logistic, technical, financial, and social problems. The university suspended regular classes from 13th March 2020 and later a nationwide lockdown began in India on 25th March 2020. The academic programs of the university education are based on intense classroom and laboratory based activities. It was difficult to move all these academic activities online immediately. Moreover, it was assumed that the situation will normalize soon and the campuses could be reopened within weeks. But unfortunately the online teaching continued till date (July 2021). 

The use of electronic devices is increased during this period both for the purpose of educational activities along with recreation. As a result, students are continuously exposed to unintentional artificial light. The effects of acute and chronic exposure to artificial light at night (ALAN) via screen illumination on sleep, circadian rhythms, and related functional outcomes is known. Both acute and chronic illumination significantly disrupts sleep continuity and architecture and leads to daytime sleepiness, negative emotions, and attention difficulties. The exposure also alters circadian rhythms, subduing the normal nocturnal decline in body temperature and dampening nocturnal melatonin secretion. 

In summary, ALAN exposure from electronic screens has an immediate, detrimental, yet stable effect on sleep, circadian regulation, and next-day functional outcomes. The widespread use of electronic devices by students may cause adverse effects on health and performance.  We have developed a questionnaire in which we will be conducting survey of undergraduate and post graduate students about their opinion on different aspects of online education during the ongoing pandemic and its impact on their changed lifestyle and health.

For any query or feedback please write to us at: chronobiology2017@gmail.com

 https://forms.gle/fKWFJVTTTtB6Kfy1A

Chronobiology open forum

Open forum of this month was conducted on Saturday 26th June 2021 on Zoom platform. The topic for the forum was ' Online work - Effect on biological clock'. Total 9 participants attended the open forum. 

Depending upon the pandemic situation, we will decide to take online or offline open forum in next week. But we need a team to be involved in to the planning of the meeting so that it will be more effective with wider outreach.

Chronobiology textbook draft is taking good shape now. Hopefully we will come up with the e-book copy by next month. Mrs. Gauri Sathaye and all the members at Bhide foundation is actively involved into the textbook writing. We hope to get preface for the book from someone from the actively working in the field. 

A new commercial venture called 'ChronoPrakriti Private Limited' is registered for professional workshops and consultancy services. We are planning to talk on it in detail during next open forum. 

Melatonin Facts

Melatonin, known as the “mother hormone of chronobiology”, has been known as an effective sleeping agent since its discovery in 1958. Thanks to decades of research, it has since risen to become a true star among hormones that has already exceeded all scientific expectations. And research is still ongoing in other fields for the therapeutic use of melatonin, opening up new applications that offer considerable promise.

It has already been scientifically proven that melatonin not only regulates sleep but also serves as an antioxidant to protect the body from free radicals, ensuring that we enjoy a high quality of life until old age. It also stimulates the immune system to defend against infections. Furthermore, it reduces blood pressure, helping to protect against cardiovascular diseases.

Melatonin (N-acetyl-5-methoxytryptamine) is mainly produced in the pineal gland, located in the brain – especially during the night in complete darkness. This is when the melatonin level rises to eight times of the level during the day. This signals to the organism that it is time for the organs and bodily functions to rest, but also to initiate vital repair mechanisms. This makes melatonin the most important internal timer.

On the other hand, even the slightest flash of light can affect this critical process, especially the blue light from TVs and smartphones, the light from an alarm clock or street lighting. These everyday appliances have proven to be highly disruptive to our internal cycles and have a substantially adverse impact on our melatonin balance.

Each flash of light passes through the retina to reach the suprachiasmatic nucleus (SCN), which is connected to the pineal gland and serves as a control centre and “master clock” for the brain. Melatonin provides the timing for this internal clock, not only letting the brain know that it should switch to “night mode”, but also passing this information on to every other organ and cell in the body. If this natural mechanism is disrupted by light during the night, this has serious consequences not only for the day/night cycle, but also for the function of the organs and the development and course of many diseases.

Only recently did it become known that the “powerhouses” of each cell, the mitochondria, are also capable of producing melatonin. This melatonin is not passed into the blood, but rather is used to regulate certain functions in each of the cells. This production is also partly controlled by the melatonin in the pineal gland, meaning that disorders of the pineal gland can also result in changes in how these cells function, which may result in organ damage, for example.

https://melatoninfacts.org/basic-facts/

Chronobiology open forum update

Unfortunately due to unavoidable circumstances, we could initiate the open forum as decided on 25th April. New schedule will be updates soon.

Chronobiology education and research has major set back due to the prevalent situation. We are awaiting the funds for last two years without any success. Students are also tentative about going ahead in chronobiology research in absence of funding opportunities. 

Chronobiology education is no different as biology faculty is not able provide realistic picture of chronobiology as a upcoming and promising branch.

We at Institute of Chronobiology Education & Research are consistently carrying forward the cause by presenting the data at international and national conferences and providing the platform for like minded people. 

Academic and professional activities at ICER are standardized and made available to public at large but still we could get any positive response from any sector of the society. Our organizational strength may be the reason for the current situation. Though in near future we do not see drastic change in the situation, we will keep ourselves firm on the path decided for popularization of chronobiology with our limited resources. 

PS: Open forum was initiated from month of May and will be conducted on last Saturday of each month. First forum was conducted on 29th May and attended by 13 participants.

Chronobiology open forum

We have decided to reinitiate the monthly open forum from April 2021. It will be an online activity to begin with in the wake of prevalent pandemic situation. 

Work from home is now an established norm and it may continue in may sectors forever. I think students and all the citizens in general need to be aware about functioning of biological clock and factors affecting its mechanism. 

Open forum will be an opportunity to share the experiences of tuning the clock in full paced modern lifestyle. I hope this platform will serve the purpose of generating the awareness about healthy lifestyle choices. 

 Day and Date of chronobiology open forum: Saturday, 25th April, 4 pm

Registration link: Will be updated soon

Study of sleep pattern during lockdown

Global pandemic has caused sudden change in the daily routine. Along with all the zeitgebers of the body’s clock, social zeitegeber is also tightly linked with regulation of sleep cycle. Since COVID-19 restrictions compelled people to waive the social obligations, which were linked to various events like school, offices, and meals. It provided us with an opportunity to compare the social pressure on the daily schedule and its impact on sleep regulation. The comparison in the sleep times before and after the imposed restrictions was calculated by calculating Social Jet Lag (SJL). SJL is the difference between the sleep duration in work day and free days. The data was collected from the residents of Pune city using an online Google form. The concept of the form was based on the Global ChronoCorono Survey (GCCS) by T. Roenneberg et al. The questionnaire consisted of 47 questions related to sleep, meal, activity, and sunlight exposure time. A total of 151 participants participated in the survey during the period of May and June 2020. Sleep debt was calculated by calculating the difference between the sleep duration in free days and work days (SLD_f- SLD_w). Social Jet Lag was calculated by using the corrected formula (Jankowski, 2017). The results explicitly show reduction of social jet lag and sleep debt. It was observed that there was higher social jet lag before lock down in homemakers and students, indicating the need for awareness about the importance of lifestyle preferences.

ChronoPrakriti workshops

Due to administrative reasons, we could not initiate workshops in this month as planned. It was realized that we need a lot of efforts to reach the audience. The team looking after various aspects of workshop is no more functional and we need to start from beginning. Also it was realized that healthy population is not keen to attend the workshop, as we have natural tendency of postponing the things until it is absolutely essential. So we may keep an option of availability of service of ChronoPrakiriti assessment for particular disease on case basis at Bhide foundation. If any group enquires for workshop, then only we will go for it which will not be a routine activity

·         It’s time to tune your ChronoPrakriti, a circadian lifestyle management workshop will be conducted at Bhide foundation on demand and will not be a regular activity.

Registration link: https://forms.gle/1NDTdJPmiaowwmxx9

·         Personalized guidance and chronoprakriti assessment will be available with appointment.