Certain Gene Mutations can Cause Night Eating Syndrome: Study

Nighttime snacking habit is caused by a faulty gene, finds a study.

Night eating syndrome (NES) or intake of food during sleeping hours is a type of eating disorder that develops in early teens and can persist in later years. Snacking at odd hours interferes with regular meal times and affects proper and healthy consumption. Recently, scientists discovered a gene PER1 that triggers hunger at odd hours, mostly at nights, which interfered with their daytime eating habits.

 For the study, experts used mice that carried two specific gene mutations PER1 and PER2 that are known to be present in individuals suffering from sleep disorders.

It was observed that mice that carried PER1 genes exhibited increased food cravings at night. These mice mostly ate high caloric foods and gained weight. They experienced a major alteration in their daily circadian cycle and metabolism. The mice resumed their normal weight and early eating habits when the PER1 gene expression was suppressed along with night-time access to food.

'For a long time, people discounted night eating syndrome as not real. 'These results in mice suggest that it could actually be a genetic basis for the syndrome," said Satchidananda Panda, study author and researcher from the Salk Institute in La Jolla, California in a news release.

"We really never expected that we would be able to decouple the sleep-wake cycle and the eating cycle, especially with a simple mutation. It opens up a whole lot of future questions about how these cycles are regulated."

The authors believe both genetic mutations are attuned to switch on and switch off at the same time adjusting eating and sleep cycles. But any major change in either gene can wreck one's sleep schedule and eating pattern.

A past research found night eating syndrome is more prevalent in young women than in men. According to statistical data by the National Institute of Mental Health, one to two percent of the U.S population has NES and suffers depression and guilt of overeating.

The study needs further investigation to accurately examine the effects of PER1 on appetite and liver, brain and other organs.

More information is available online in the journal Cell Reports.