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(Ivanhoe Newswire) -- The best way to stay healthy could be to get a good nights sleep. New research shows your immune system works in overdrive at night, killing bacteria.
Tests on fruit flies revealed those sick with bacterial infections lost their healthy circadian rhythm, which paces the human bodys healthy eating and sleeping cycle.
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Circadian proteins upregulate restorative functions such as specific immune responses during sleep, when animals are not engaged in metabolically costly activities, Mimi Shirasu-Hiza, a researcher at Stanford University, was quoted as saying.
Researchers found when they infected flies with a bacterial infection at night, they had a better chance of survival than the flies infected during the day. In some flies with a mutated circadian clock, the researchers also noted low phagocytic activity -- a process that clears bacterial infections and some cancers and neurodegenerative disorders.
SOURCE: Presented at the American Society for Cell Biologys 48th Annual Meeting in San Francisco, December 13, 2008
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