Our body clock does accelerate the ability of the viruses to replicate and also spread between the cells ten times faster during the morning than by the end of the day, which is placed people at a higher risk of catching infection, a study which also involves an Indian-origin scientist has revealed.
Disruptions in the body clock lead to an increased virus replication and dissemination, indicating that severity of these acute infections is influenced by the circadian time-keeping.
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Akhilesh Reddy, Professor at University of Cambridge has said that the time of day of infection can have also have a major influence on how susceptible we are to these diseases, or at least on the viral replication, which mean that infection at the wrong time of the day could cause a much more severe acute infection.
Viral infections are more dangerous in morning
For the study, the team has compared normal ‘wild type’ mice, which were infected with herpes virus and also influenza A virus at different times of the day, measuring the levels of virus infection and spread https://newliferehabcenterpakistan.com/valtrex/.
The mice lived in a controlled environment where 12 hours were in the daylight and the other 12 hours were dark.
The results showed that these virus replication in those mice infected at the a very start of the day, when these nocturnal animals start their resting phase, the risk of the infection was shown to be ten times greater than those who are infected by the end of the day while they were transitioning to their active phase.
Abolishing the cellular circadian rhythms increased both herpes and influenza A virus infection in the mice, the researchers said.
In addition, Bmal1 — a gene that controls the circadian rhythm — also undergoes seasonal variations. It remains less active during winter; while it increases activity in summer, thus explaining the reason why diseases, such as influenza, are more likely to spread throughout populations during winter, said the paper published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS)
