I hate winter, it’s cold, it’s grey, it gets dark so dang early.
Turns out your body hates it too.
Axial tilt maybe be the reason for the season, but it’s technically changing our genes.
Hey guys julia here for DNews
Winter is rough for those of us who live in cold climates.
As the wind chill dips below zero degrees, you ask yourself, why do I live somewhere
where the air HURTS MY FACE!?
But it’s not just the cold that’s rough on our bodies, it’s the lack of sunlight
too.
Almost all living things have a circadian rhythm that changes with the light.
From sleep cycles to hibernation, light regulates most of life on Earth.
The Earth is tilted at a comfortable 23.5 degrees.
This means that at some parts of the year the northern hemisphere leans slightly closer
to the sun and other parts of the year the southern hemisphere gets a little cozier with
the sun.
And with that, it means the amount of light that reaches your little section of the planet
changes throughout the year.
Those grey skies and fading evening light can have profound changes on your body.
The change in light can cause problems like seasonal affective disorder, a condition which
brings about a low mood as levels of sunlight induced Vitamin D drop.
But there’s a few other lesser known effects of less sunlight.
In a study published in the journal Drug Metabolism & Disposition researchers found how less sunlight
changes how your body metabolizes medication.
They focused on two types of immune suppressing drugs, tacrolimus and sirolimus.
Basically the more Vitamin D, the more an enzyme CYP3A4 is produced.
The more of this enzyme, the faster the drugs were metabolized.
While the study focused on just these two medications, the researchers think these results
might be true for other types of medications.
So the study suggests that sunlight could affect your sensitivity to certain drugs.
One study from the American College of Cardiology, found that cholesterol levels vary from season
to season.
In a large study of over 2.8 million adults, researchers from Johns Hopkins Ciccarone Center
for the Prevention of Heart Disease found that for many people, cholesterol levels seem
to be higher in the winter.
The researchers think that less sunlight plays a role in these rising levels.
As we are exposed to less light during the winter, because of staying inside and shorter
days, we get less vitamin D. Another study published in the journal Menopause found a
link between more vitamin D and lower cholesterol levels.
So with less vitamin D, cholesterol levels might rise.
But even though more research is needed, there’s other evidence that shows how your body takes
a whopping in the winter.
So much so, that it affects your gene!
One study published in the journal Nature Communications found that around 23% of human
genome expression changes from season to season mostly to boost your immune system.
This time of year is prime cold and flu season, so to fight off infections, your body switches
on certain pro-inflammatory genes.
Your DNA is made up of two strains that wrap around each other in the famous double helix
structure, to get even more compact and tiny, that DNA is wrapped around little proteins
called histones.
Think of how thread is wrapped around spool, that’s kind of what histones look like.
When DNA needs to be translated to make proteins, these histones unravel to let out a little
bit of DNA at a time.
But which histones unravel when depends on various influences.
In this case, it’s seasonal influences, probably the amount of sunlight.
When the participants went through winter months, no matter what hemisphere they were
in, the lack of sunlight seemed to activate pro-inflammatory genes.
And like we know from other DNews episodes, inflammation, while it can help us fight off
some infections, too much can also harm our health, leading to heart disease, diabetes,
or stress related mental health issues.
Which interestingly, the authors think could be another reason for more cardiovascular
deaths in the winter.
But if you live somewhere where there isn’t a winter, your immune system is impacted by
other kinds of seasonal changes.
In this study, the researchers found that those who live in Gambia have seasonal peaks
correlated with the rainy season (June to October), when infectious diseases seem to
be more prevalent.
So happy winter to everyone who’s in it!
Enjoy your body’s changes.
I hope this season brings you more joy than it brings cardiovascular, psychiatric or inflammatory
issues!
Or maybe if you wait long enough, climate change could take away our seasons, starting
with fall.
To find out more about the end of autumn, Trace has the scoop in this episode right
here.
So are you a fan of winter?
Love to build snowmen in the frozen outdoors?
Or are you a curl up by the fire with a good book kind of person?
Tell us your thoughts down below