Your Liver Doesn’t Know It’s the Holidays
The New York Times
Dec. 22, 2016
Over the holidays, many of us will drink, stay up past bedtime, eat an extra slice of pie and sleep in. Fun as they are, these activities can tamper with our circadian rhythms, the feedback loops that sync our body’s functions to our external environment.
The liver, which helps regulate your body’s metabolism, gets thrown off by unhealthy patterns of sleep or by changes in diet or alcohol consumption. If you’re experiencing indigestion or your energy levels are low after too many holiday parties, your liver could be out of sync. In recent years, more and more research in the field of chronobiology, the science of biological rhythms, suggests the importance of maintaining a consistent schedule for the sake of your liver, which has a clock of its own.
Circadian rhythms are important for helping the liver anticipate the body’s demands throughout the day, like stockpiling energy after meals and releasing it when we sleep, said Felix Naef, a professor of quantitative biology at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne.
Recent studies have examined how alcohol affects circadian rhythms. This year, researchers reported that night shift workers given two to four glasses of wine each day for a week had altered circadian rhythms and “leakier” intestinal linings than day workers, which could put them at risk of alcoholic liver disease.
Dr. Garth R. Swanson, a gastroenterologist at Rush University Medical Center in Chicago and an author of the study, says he believes this risk applies to any drinkers who frequently shift their circadian rhythms by more than two hours.
“People don’t have to be working night shifts for months or years,” he said. “You could potentially put yourself at risk just by doing a series of bad behaviors for a relatively short amount of time.”
Other studies in mice have implications for understanding the liver’s cycles.
Last month, Dr. Naef and a team of researchers reported finding more than 500 proteins in mice liver cells that shift in abundance over the course of the day. These proteins ultimately help the liver filter blood and process fats and sugars. When they are thrown off their tight schedules, the liver might lag in important processes like detoxification and digestion.
Our daily liver cycles are molded by an interplay between sleep, food and alcohol. Sleep affects the master clock in our brain. Like most other bodily organs, the liver is partly governed by this central rhythm.
But the liver also has its own internal clock, which can be affected by food and alcohol.
In studies with mice, John Y. L. Chiang, a professor of biochemistry at Northeast Ohio Medical University, has found that even short-term changes in either sleep or diet can affect the liver’s ability to contribute to fat digestion. Chronic disturbances, he said, may lead to fat accumulation in the liver, which can cause “many different problems: fatty liver disease, diabetes, obesity, heart disease and even cancer.”
Alcohol can also knock a mouse’s liver rhythms out of whack, said Shannon M. Bailey, a professor of environmental health sciences at the University of Alabama at Birmingham. Her team recently found that feeding mice moderate levels of alcohol for a month significantly disrupted the functioning of their liver clocks.
To keep your liver’s clock consistent this holiday season, avoid extreme behaviors, said Lei Yin, an assistant professor of physiology at the University of Michigan.
That means maintaining your central circadian rhythm with a regular sleep schedule. You can stay up a little later, but try to avoid doing so more than two hours past your normal bedtime. A helpful tip is to go on a walk in the mornings. “Light is the most powerful way to reset our internal clock,” Dr. Yin said.
It also means staying cognizant of how food and alcohol affect your liver’s timers. Try to stick to normal mealtimes. And it’s fine to drink a little, but avoid binge drinking, which is defined as more than four or five drinks in two hours.
In the short term, sticking to these guidelines might ease your transition back to reality, once the holidays are over. In the long term, maintaining a regular schedule and drinking less can safeguard your metabolism and prevent disease.
1. sleep in
表示“睡懒觉”，英文解释为“to sleep until later in the morning than you usually do”举个🌰：
I usually sleep in on Saturdays.
我通常星期六都要睡到很晚才起床。
2. tamper
表示“干涉；篡改”，英文解释为“If someone tampers with something, they interfere with it or try to change it when they have no right to do so.”举个🌰：
I don't want to be accused of tampering with the evidence.
我不想被指控篡改证据。
📍《经济学人》（The Economist）一篇介绍比特币的文章中提到：The system’s dispersed nature means that tampering with the accounts would require gaining control over a majority of the network’s computers. 这个系统的分散性意味着要想篡改账本就必须取得网络中大部分计算机的控制权。
3. circadian
circadian /sɜːˈkeɪdɪən/ 表示“（指每24小时人或动物体内变化）昼夜节律的，生理节奏的”，英文解释为“connected with the changes in the bodies of people or animals over each period of 24 hours”。
4. rhythm
rhythm /ˈrɪðəm/ 表示“（尤指自然界中的）规则变化，规律，节律”，英文解释为“a regular pattern of change, especially one that happens in nature”如：the rhythm of the seasons 四季的交替。
5. sync
sync /sɪŋk/ 表示“（使）同步；（使）同时发生”，英文解释为“to arrange for two or more things to happen at exactly the same time, or to happen at the same time or in the same way as something else”举个🌰：
The hardest part was syncing the music to the video.
最难的部分就是使音乐和图像同步。
类似的：
📍synchronize /ˈsɪŋkrəˌnaɪz/表示“（使）同时发生，（使）同步”，英文解释为“to happen at exactly the same time, or to arrange for two or more actions to happen at exactly the same time”举个🌰：
Synchronize the score with the film action.
让配乐和电影动作同步。
📍其中的score，熟词僻义，表示“乐谱”（a written or printed copy of a piece of music, especially for a large group of performers, or the music itself），如：a musical score 乐谱。
6. metabolism
metabolism /mɪˈtæbəˌlɪzəm/ 表示“新陈代谢”，英文解释为“( biology 生 ) the chemical processes in living things that change food, etc. into energy and materials for growth”举个🌰：
The body's metabolism is slowed down by extreme cold.
严寒可以使身体新陈代谢的速度下降。
7. stockpile
表示“（大量）储备，贮存；囤积”，英文解释为“to store a large supply of something for future use”举个🌰：
People are stockpiling food for the coming winter.
人们正在为即将到来的冬天大量储备食物。
8. shift
作名词，表示“班；轮班；轮班工作时间”，英文解释为“a period of time worked by a group of workers who start work as another group finishes”，如：to be on the day/night shift at the factory 在工厂上日班/夜班，to work an eight-hour shift 按每班八小时轮班工作，working in shifts 轮班工作。
9.leaky
表示“漏的，泄漏的”，英文解释为“Something that is leaky has a hole or crack in it that allows liquid or gas to get through.”如：leaky pipes 有裂缝的管道。
10. intestinal
intestinal /ɪnˈtestɪnl,ˌɪnteˈstaɪnl/表示“肠的”，英文解释为“relating to the intestines (= a long tube through which food travels from the stomach and out of the body while it is being digested)”举个🌰：
Foul-smelling brown vomit can be a symptom of low intestinal obstruction.
呕吐物为棕色带恶臭可能是低位肠梗阻的症状。
11. lining /ˈlaɪnɪŋ/
1）表示“衬层；内衬；衬里”，英文解释为“a layer of material used to cover the inside surface of sth”如：a pair of leather gloves with fur linings 一双毛皮衬里的皮手套。
2）表示“（胃等器官内部的）保护层”，英文解释为“The lining of your stomach or other organ is a layer of tissue on the inside of it.”如：a bacterium that attacks the lining of the stomach 一种侵袭胃粘膜的细菌。
12. gastroenterologist
gastroenterologist /'gæstrəu,entərɔlədʒist/ 表示“胃肠病学家，消化科医师”，英文解释为“a doctor who specializes in diseases of the digestive system”。
13. lag
表示“缓慢移动；发展缓慢；滞后；落后于”，英文解释为“to move or develop slowly or more slowly than other people, organizations, etc.”举个🌰：
We still lag far behind many of our competitors in using modern technology.
我们在运用现代技术方面仍然远远落后于我们的许多竞争对手。
14. chronic /ˈkrɒnɪk/
1) 表示“（疾病）慢性的，长期的”，英文解释为“a chronic disease or illness is one that continues for a long time and cannot be cured”，如：chronic arthritis表示“慢性关节炎”。
2) 表示“（问题）长期的”，英文解释为“a chronic problem is one that continues for a long time and cannot easily be solved”。举个🌰：
There is a chronic shortage of teachers.
长期存在师资短缺的问题。
3) 还有一种解释是用来形容人“积习难改的”，如“长期酗酒/沉迷赌博等的人”我们就可以用chronic alcoholic/gambler表示。
15. disturbance
表示“障碍；失调；紊乱”，英文解释为“a state in which sb's mind or a function of the body is upset and not working normally”如：emotional disturbance 情绪失常。
16. diabetes
diabetes /ˌdaɪəˈbiːtɪs, -tiːz/ 表示“糖尿病；多尿症”，英文解释为“a medical condition caused by a lack of insulin , which makes the patient produce a lot of urine and feel very thirsty”。
17. obesity
obesity /oʊˈbiːsəti/ 表示“肥胖”，英文解释为“the fact of being extremely fat, in a way that is dangerous for health”。
18. out of whack
out of whack /wæk/表示“出毛病的，不正常的”，英文解释为“not operating correctly or looking right”举个🌰：
You can use his old bike - the gears are out of whack, but it still goes.
你可以骑他的旧自行车——齿轮可能有点问题，但还能骑。
19. ognizant
表示“察知的；认识到的”，英文解释为“understanding or realizing something”举个🌰：
We should be cognizant of the fact that every complaint is not a justified complaint.
我们应该认识到并非每一桩投诉都是合理的。
