A January 2020 study by the University De Geneve noted that,
"We had also previously observed that if the clocks of human pancreatic cells were artificially disrupted in the cellular culture in vitro, secretion of the key islet hormones - insulin and glucagon - was compromised …Hence our next step, that we report here, was to unravel whether the circadian rhythms were perturbed in human pancreatic islets in type 2 diabetes, and, if so, how would this perturbation affect the islet function."
"The verdict is indisputable … hormone secretion is no longer coordinated. Moreover, the defects in temporal coordination of insulin and glucagon secretion observed in patients with type-2 diabetes were comparable to those measured in healthy islet cells with artificially-disrupted circadian clock."
"Pancreatic cells are also subject to the rhythm of fasting and food intake, and to a tight hormonal regulation …Coordinating all levels of regulation therefore allows the optimization of metabolic functions. Clocks deregulation in pancreatic islet leads to a compromised function: they are not anymore anticipating food-derived signals. Indeed, if you eat the same food but at night rather than during the day, you may gain weight much faster, due to a suboptimal response of your metabolism."
“By acting on one of the core-clock components, it resets efficiently the amplitude of the oscillations in the human islets … And as soon as we got the clocks back in sync, we also observed an improvement in insulin secretion."
“This is the first proof of principle that repairing compromised circadian clocks may help improving the function of the pancreatic islet hormone secretion… Our society experiences epidemic growth in metabolic diseases, concomitant with shifted working and eating schedules, and lack of sleep. By re-synchronizing the perturbed molecular clocks, either by personalized eating and exercise schedules or with the help of clock modulator molecules, we hope to ultimately be able to provide an innovative solution to an epidemical metabolic problem affecting an ever-increasing proportion of the world's population."