Vitamin D may play a vital role in regulating our body clocks, reports New Scientist.
The researchers, from Monterrey Institute of Technology, wanted to see if vitamin D deficiency could be responsible for the havoc caused to our health – such as increased stroke risk – when body clocks are knocked out of sync by enforced routines such as night shifts.
The scientists looked at the behaviour over 24 hours of two so-called ‘clock-genes’ in human fat cells. When cells were immersed in blood serum they acted as they would in the body, actively oscillating throughout the period. Dosing cells with vitamin D produced the same effect, but no such effect was observed when cells were placed in a different nutrient solution.
By showing that vitamin D synchronised the cells, the scientists say there study demonstrates that vitamin D could be one of the ways that we maintain our circadian rhythms.
