Physiology & behaviorFeb 2, 2023

Using light timing and occasional fasting to improve metabolism and gut health in night shift workers

Circadian Biology Weekly Brief ↗PubMed ↗DOI ↗

Updated Mar 19, 2026

Abstract

Shift workers, making up roughly 20% of the workforce, face increased risks of metabolic disease due to circadian misalignment.

Circadian misalignment occurs when environmental cues like light and feeding times are out of sync with the body's internal clocks.
Artificial light exposure at night and irregular eating patterns can disrupt the coordination between central and peripheral circadian clocks.
This disruption may lead to conflicting signals from gut microbiota and their metabolites, potentially affecting metabolic health.
Two proposed interventions include adjusting blue light exposure to enhance sleep quality and aligning caloric intake with morning hours to synchronize internal clocks.

Simplified

The mammalian circadian clocks are entrained by environmental time cues, such as the light-dark cycle and the feeding-fasting cycle. In modern society, circadian misalignment is increasingly more common under the guise of shift work. Shift workers, accounting for roughly 20% of the workforce population, are more susceptible to metabolic disease. Exposure to artificial light at night and eating at inappropriate times of the day uncouples the central and peripheral circadian clocks. This internal circadian desynchrony is believed to be one of the culprits leading to metabolic disease. In this review, we discuss how alterations in the rhythm of gut microbiota and their metabolites during chronodisruption send conflicting signals to the host, which may ultimately contribute to disturbed metabolic processes. We propose two behavioral interventions to improve health in shift workers. Firstly, by carefully timing the moments of exposure to blue light, and hence shifting the melatonin peak, to improve sleep quality of daytime sleeping episodes. Secondly, by timing the daily time window of caloric intake to the biological morning, to properly align the feeding-fasting cycle with the light-dark cycle and to reduce the risk of metabolic disease. These interventions can be a first step in reducing the worldwide burden of health problems associated with shift work.

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Funding

Competing interests

Declaration of Competing Interest None declared.

PubMed

Using light timing and occasional fasting to improve metabolism and gut health in night shift workers

Abstract

Full Text

Funding

Competing interests

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