Gene that predicts time of day you will die
At this particular site in the
genome, 60 per cent of individuals have the nucleotide base adenine (A) and 40 per cent have guanine (G).
As there are two sets of chromosomes, in any given individual, there's about a 36 per cent chance of having two As, a 16 per cent chance of having two Gs, and a 48 per cent chance of having a mixture of A and G at this site.
"This particular genotype affects the sleep-wake pattern of virtually everyone walking around, and it is a fairly profound effect so that the people who have the A-A genotype wake up about an hour earlier than the people who have the G-G
genotype, and the A-Gs wake up almost exactly in the middle," said Clifford Saper, Professor at Harvard Medical School.
Expression of the Period 1 gene was lower in the brains and white blood cells of people with the G-G genotype than those with the A-A genotype, but only in the daytime, which is when the gene is normally expressed.
"Virtually all physiological processes have a circadian rhythm, meaning that they occur predominantly at certain parts of the day. There's even a circadian rhythm of death, so that in the general population people tend on average to be most likely to die in the morning hours. Sometime around 11 am is the average time," said Saper in a statement.
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