Anticipation of meal time in humans

大多数生物体都拥有内部时钟，可以调节许多关键生物功能（例如激素分泌，睡眠时间，新陈代谢）的每日（昼夜）节律。包括人类在内的哺乳动物的昼夜节律计时系统由大脑中称为下丘脑的部分内的“主”时钟和遍布全身的许多“外围”时钟组成（例如在肝脏，胰腺和脂肪中）。越来越多的证据表明，这些生物钟中的许多在我们的新陈代谢中起着重要的作用，包括我们如何对一天中不同时间的饮食做出反应。这项工作非常重要，因为它开始解释进食时间（不仅仅是食物类型和数量）如何影响我们的体重长期健康。进食时间是同步动物外周生物钟的重要信号，我们最近首次表明，一些人类节律（例如葡萄糖控制）也通过进食时间同步。从动物研究中也可以明显看出，内部时钟对于能够预测进餐时间至关重要。然而，参与这顿饭预期发生的潜在代谢途径尚未完全了解。此外，还没有在人类身上进行过关于进餐预期的实验，部分原因是世界上很少有地方可以进行控制良好的人类昼夜节律实验。此外，技术的进步最近才使得在一组实验样本中对多种节律性代谢途径进行大规模高分辨率分析成为可能。在萨里大学，我们拥有世界一流的人类生物学设施，昼夜节律专家和营养科学专家。通过我们最近的研究，我们已经成为使用称为代谢组学的最先进技术分析人类志愿者样本中代谢节律的世界领导者。重要的是，我们还产生了初步的信息，显示了人类新陈代谢的能力，以预测定期管理的膳食。因此，我们建议在我们的初步数据的基础上，进行一个非常及时的实验，以发现人类生物学对进餐时间的确切预期。了解食物预期的潜在过程将回答人类生理学中的一个基本问题，对体重平衡和代谢健康产生（广泛）影响。这些知识最终将帮助科学家和临床医生设计更好的饮食策略，以调节体重和改善代谢健康。

Most living organisms possess internal clocks that regulate daily (circadian) rhythms in many key biological functions (e.g. hormone secretion, sleep time, metabolism). The circadian timing system in mammals, including humans, consists of a 'master' clock within a part of the brain called the hypothalamus and many 'peripheral' clocks found throughout the body (e.g. in liver, pancreas and fat). There is increasing evidence to show that many of these clocks play an important role in timing our metabolism, including how we respond to meals eaten at different times of day. This work is extremely important as it is beginning to explain how meal timing (not just food type and quantity) influences our body weight long-term health.The time of feeding is an important signal for synchronising peripheral clocks in animals and we have recently shown for the first time that some human rhythms (e.g. of glucose control) are also synchronised by meal timing. It is also apparent from animal studies that internal clocks are essential to be able to anticipate meal timing. However, the underlying metabolic pathways involved in this meal anticipation occurs is not fully understood. Furthermore, no experiments on meal anticipation have been performed in humans, in part because very few places in the world can perform well-controlled human circadian experiments. In addition, technological advances have only recently enabled large-scale high-resolution analysis of multiple rhythmic metabolic pathways in a single set of experimental samples.At the University of Surrey, we have the benefit of world class human biology facilities, experts in circadian rhythms, and experts in nutritional science. Through our recent research, we have become world leaders in the analysis of metabolite rhythms in samples from human volunteers using state-of-the-art technology called metabolomics. Importantly, we have also produced preliminary information that shows the ability of human metabolism to anticipate a regularly administered meal. We therefore propose to build upon our preliminary data by conducting an extremely timely experiment to discover exactly how meal time is anticipated by human biology.Understanding the processes underlying food anticipation will answer a fundamental question in human physiology, with a (wide ranging) impact on weight balance and metabolic health. This knowledge will ultimately help scientists and clinicians to design better dietary strategies to regulate body weight and improve metabolic health.