Blood pressure (BP) has a circadian rhythm. I think. A circadian rhythm has a strict definition which I’m not entirely sure BP has met. A circadian rhythm is a cyclic process that repeats every 24 hours (“circa” – around, “diem” – day). Chronobiologists have claimed three distinct characteristics a biological rhythm must possess in order
The PhD Muscle Blog
Clock Genes, Vascular Smooth Muscle Contractility, and Drug Timing: A Potential Relationship for Blood Pressure Management
I previously discussed how hyperglycemia can induce changes to the cellular signaling of vascular smooth muscle, and how this contributes to vascular dysfunction and increases in blood pressure. Adding another layer of complexity, this hyperglycemia-induced vascular dysfunction has a circadian component to it. In this post, I’ll briefly run down how our biological clock works
Vascular Smooth Muscle Contractility – How Blood Sugar Influences Blood Pressure
Most people generally understand that chronic high blood sugar isn’t a good thing. But why exactly isn’t it? I’ve posed this question before, and the overwhelming response is that it leads to type 2 diabetes. That isn’t really answering the question, is it? Here, I’ll briefly discuss one potential answer to this question by exploring
The Making, Transport, and Action of Hormones
In the first part of this series, I introduced a bit about the endocrine system, some common characteristics of hormones, and detailed how they’re classified. Here, I’ll expand further and discuss how they’re made, transported, and briefly discuss what they do when they reach their target. Synthesizing Protein and Peptide Hormones Protein hormones are made
The Rev-Erbα / RORα Mechanism of Regulation
In the last post, I covered how proteins PER and CRY heterodimerize to inhibit CLOCK and BMAL1 heterodimers from forming in the nucleus. This, currently, is the best understood transcriptional-translational feedback loop of mammalian molecular clocks. There are, however, other levels of regulation that I’ll cover here. There is an “accessory loop” that aids in
Mammalian Circadian Clocks
Previously, I wrote about the circadian rhythm and its regulation in D. melanogaster, a fruit fly. It was largely regulated by the level of certain cytoplasmic proteins and by a protein that’s activated in response to light. These are examples of a transcriptional-translational feedback loop (TTFL) – a reoccurring theme among circadian mechanisms. Those TTFLs
An Introduction To Circadian Clocks
A circadian rhythm is a cyclic process that repeats every 24 hours. Whether or not you realize it, your behaviors are largely dictated by a circadian rhythm. The light/dark cycle, for example, determines when you’re awake or asleep (generally, that is). It’s not just your conscious decisions that follow this pattern either – all of
An Introduction to the Endocrine System
Your body’s biology is centered around maintaining a homeostatic environment. We’re constantly doing things that would threaten this homeostasis and as such, your body has intricate mechanisms in place to keep its internal environment steady. This internal environment allows for a certain degree of variability around a setpoint. These are things like your body temperature,