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Sleep disruption, high fat diet and inflammation

There has been a lot of discussion as to how sleep disruption and a high fat diet might affect inflammation, glycemic control and hence body weight and health. A new paper by Jacqueline Ho et al. ( Neurobiology of Sleep and Circadian Rhythms (2017) ) from University of Washington, Seattle begins to shine some light on this. It is known that hypothalamic inflammation (neuroinflammation) contributes to over-eating (hyperphagia) and weight gain in models of diet-induced obesity. However, although sleep disruption appears to be related to an increased risk of metabolic disease it is not known whether this contributes to or causes neuroinflammation. In their model, sleep was disrupted in mice either on a normal or a high fat diet and compared to mice without sleep disruption on a normal or high fat diet. Sleep fragmentation potently induced hypothalamic inflammation. The significant main effect of the high fat diet in the short-term (3 days) was driven by responses associated with sleep
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All About Inflammation - Welcome

I am Alan Watt, a PhD scientist working in immuno-inflammation research. I am the CSO of NodThera Limited, a biotech developing inhibitors of a protein complex called the inflammasome and the Science Director of a preventative medicine startup XenoVida Limited. This blog is " all about inflammation ", and how it affects our health in ways that we are only just beginning to understand. Inflammation is the classic double-edged sword; without it we would not survive as it is essential for fighting infection and wound healing, but unresolved inflammation, often referred to as chronic low-grade inflammation, is a major contributor to many of the diseases we are now facing in the world. One hundred years ago, the biggest threat to humanity was infectious diseases. With the advent of antibiotics and improved living conditions the chances of dying from an infection, particularly in the West, has declined dramatically. Unfortunately, over the last 30 or 40 years this decrease has
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