A new simple blood test has been developed by researchers and, apparently, it can tell the time in your body. Don’t be confused, the time shown by the clock on your wall might be very different from the one experienced by your body.
It wasn’t too long ago that such precise measurements had to be sophisticatedly identified just by opting for a costly and difficult process of taking samples on an hourly basis over the span of several hours. TimeSignature, as the new test is called, will require just two draws of blood.
The lead author, Rosemary Braun, is an assistant professor of preventive medicine at the Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine. She stated that “this is a much more precise and sophisticated measurement than identifying whether you are a morning lark or a night owl. We can assess a person’s biological clock to within 1.5 hours. Various groups have tried to get at internal circadian time from a blood test, but nothing has been as accurate or as easy to use as TimeSignature.”
Our internal biological clock is what orchestrates the processes happening in our every tissue or organ system. It acts by directing our circadian time, or the sleep-wake cycle, and while some of us are completely in-sync with external time, there are others who are considered misaligned and out of sync.
This test allows researchers to examine how people suffering from Alzheimer, diabetes or heart disease are impacted by the misalignment of their internal clocks. If this blood test should become clinically available, it will allow doctors to measure the internal clock of their patients, which in turn will allow them to receive medication dosing at the most effective time for their bodies.
As our second lead editor, Anna C. Mackinno provides guidance on the stories Great Lakes Ledger reporters cover. She has been instrumental in making sure the content on the site is clear and accurate for our readers. If you see a particularly clever title, you can likely thank Anna. Anna received a BA and and MA from Fordham University.