Body clocks should be targeted a treatment for people with poor mental health, researchers have said after a study showed almost a quarter of participants showed signs of what looks like jet lag.
Experts found circadian disruption in young people with mental ill-health, where their body clocks are “not just delayed but not lining up with each other”.
The Australian study examined three key measures of body clock regulation in 69 young people with mental ill-health – core body temperature, cortisol levels and melatonin levels, which all play important roles in how our bodies manage the circadian rhythm.
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Melatonin is a hormone that tell us when it is time to sleep, while another hormone, cortisol, is highest soon after waking up in the morning. Body temperature rises and falls in a cycle that is closely aligned with sleep.
Dr Joanne Carpenter, from the University of Sydney, explained: “When we looked at these three measures in young people who presented to mental health services, we found that 23% of patients were experiencing a kind of physiological jet lag.
“Our findings suggest we might need to think differently about what kinds of treatments we’re giving people with mood disorders, and whether we should be targeting body clocks as another option for managing these conditions.”
Melatonin and cortisol levels were measured using saliva samples in the lead up to sleep and after participants woke, which is the first time these key markers of the circadian rhythm have been combined with body temperature to study how circadian rhythms might be misaligned in people with mood disorders.
Dr Carpenter said: “We found that 23% of patients had at least two of these circadian rhythm measures out of sync with each other. This is similar to the disruption we see when traveling across time zones or undertaking shift work, when the body clock becomes out of sync with the external environment. However, what we are seeing here is circadian rhythms being out of sync with each other within a person’s body, a kind of ‘internal jet lag’.
“While we do see teenagers sleeping later because of normal developmental shifts in the body clock to later timing across adolescence, what we are seeing here is a more extreme kind of circadian disruption where the clocks are not just delayed but not lining up with each other.”
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Higher depressive symptoms were linked to core body temperature cycles that were running on an earlier clock than other rhythms and sleep-wake patterns.
Dr Carpenter added: “This strong early evidence opens up exciting new ways we can study and potentially treat common mental health disorders and hopefully improve the lives the thousands of young Australians living with depression and anxiety.”
Read more in Journal of Biological Rhythms
