About the Project
Supervisors:
Dr Charlotte Edwardson, Dr Andrew Hall, Dr Alex Rowlands, Dr Tom Yates, Prof Melanie Davies
Application Deadline:
Noon on 17th February 2017
Aim:
To investigate whether synchronising lifestyle interventions with circadian rhythm can restore metabolic health in obese adults with dysglycaemia.
Background:
The circadian rhythm is a cycle, roughly 24 hours, that tells our bodies when to sleep, wake up and eat--regulating many physiological processes. Despite these circadian rhythms being endogenously generated, modern industrialised societies has led to many individuals’ often engaging in behaviors, e.g., night shift work, that are out of phase with their circadian rhythms. Many individuals experience a form of mild circadian misalignment, especially during the work week as they follow social rhythms imposed by professional obligation, school schedules, and family. The degree of misalignment is dependent on the individual’s preference for ‘morning’ (being an early bird) or ‘evening’ (being a night owl), these behavioural manifestations have been termed “chronotypes”. Lifestyles that are out of phase with individual chronotyopes initiate metabolic dysfunction and are a risk factor for type 2 diabetes.
Research Plan:
The PhD will involve a series of supervised laboratory and free-living interventions to test the extent to which lifestyles that are out of phase with underlying chronotype are associated with dysglycaemia and type 2 diabetes and whether metabolic health can be restored through targeted interventions matching exercise training and dietary intake to key periods of individual circadian rhythms. Trials will test the same intervention dose (i.e. caloric restriction with exercise training) +/- circadian synchronisation. Acute cross-over trials designs will be used to optimise the intervention design followed by a 12 week randomised controlled trial. The primary outcome will be glucose responses to a mixed meal test. Other outcomes will include plasma insulin, free fatty acid, triglyceride and appetite hormone responses to a meal tolerance test, markers of chronic inflammation, DEXA assessed anthropometry, fitness, and quality of life.
Impact and outcomes:
New knowledge will be generated that could have important implications for the prevention and management of type 2 diabetes and enable greater precision in the prescription of lifestyle therapy.
HOST ENVIRONMENT
The DRC are ranked in the top three leading diabetes research centres in Europe and the top six internationally. Our unique cluster of translational expertise and infrastructure has been commended by the National Institute for Health Research (NIHR). DRC have helped attracted over £40 million in grant income since 2005 with over 400 peer-reviewed articles published in the last seven years. DRC researchers have a track record of undertaking experimental programmes of physical activity research within high risk populations. DRC hosts the Directors for the newly awarded NIHR Leicester Biomedical Research Centre, the NIHR Collaboration for Leadership in Applied Health Research and Care East Midlands and the East Midlands Centre for Black and Minority Ethnic Health. This studentship will work collaboratively across these organisations.
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