The Cariñena City Council will allocate the funds raised in its solidarity tortilla to the IIS Aragón
September 12, 2023
Luis Moreno, researcher at the University of Zaragoza and the IIS Aragón, participates in an important Nutrition congress in Brazil
September 14, 2023
Alberto Jiménez Schuhmacher, researcher at the IIS Aragón, publishes in his weekly column in Heraldo de Aragón a reflection on the circadian rhythm and its implication in health and diseases.
Mimosa pudica is a plant with small mauve-pink flowers. It opens its leaves at dawn and closes them when night comes. Its name derives from its sensitivity, since a small touch is enough for it to modestly close its leaves, like when night comes.
This shyness is a defense mechanism against predators since, when retracted, it appears withered or withered.
A summer afternoon in 1729 Dortous de Mairan, intrigued by the cyclical behavior of his mimosas, carried out a simple experiment, like all great experiments. He took two of the mimosas from him and put them in a dark closet. The next morning, with the help of a dim candle, he observed that the plants had opened their leaves. They closed again when the sun went down, despite being permanently dark. This simple experiment marks the beginning of the study of the circadian rhythm.
Today we know many “rhythms” in our cells. We know that our immune system is more active at night, such as DNA repair mechanisms. We know that a large clock of a few neurons, the suprachiasmatic nucleus, synchronizes all our clocks and depends on light. In Spain we experience permanent jetlag due to the time lag with respect to the sun. We should reconsider and listen to the science. As Carlos López Otín reminds us in 'The Dream of Time' (Pairós, 2020), the human body is an enormous clockwork. If it becomes desynchronized, diseases arise and our longevity is shortened.
Source: Heraldo de Aragón
