Integrative physiology Professor Ken Wright is breaking new ground in the burgeoning field of sleep research and bringing his students along for the ride, all of which has won him the Mary A. Carskadon Outstanding Educator Award
Ken Wright was a research fellow studying sleep and circadian rhythm at Harvard Medical School in the late 鈥�90s when he read a paper that set his career on a groundbreaking new path.
鈥淎t the time, people assumed that sleep was strictly by the brain and for the brain,鈥� recalls Wright, now a professor of distinction in the Department of Integrative Physiology at the University of Colorado Boulder.
The , by University of Chicago Professor Eve Van Cauter, suggested for the first time that sleep disruption could do far more than make us feel groggy and confused: It could also disrupt hormones, potentially fueling diseases like obesity, heart disease and diabetes. Wright saw an opening.
In June, the Sleep Research Society will honor Integrative physiology Professor Ken Wright for his work as both a mentor to university students and a messenger to the public about the power of sleep.
鈥淚 could see that this field was about to explode,鈥� he recalls.
Two decades later, Wright has worked with undergraduate and graduate students to publish more than 140 papers elucidating how sleep, and lack thereof, affect everything from our appetite to how we metabolize fat and sugar to which microorganisms live inside our guts. His myriad human studies, conducted in the Sleep and Chronobiology Lab on campus, have shed light on what people can and shouldn鈥檛 do to try to normalize their internal body clock.
And his team鈥檚 discoveries are now paving the way toward a future in which, along with having their blood tested for cholesterol levels at the doctor鈥檚 office, patients might also get a test assessing whether they are natural night owls or morning larks and personalized prescriptions for how to better time their lives.
In June, the Sleep Research Society will honor Wright with its Mary A. Carskadon Outstanding Educator Award for excellence in education, acknowledging his work as both a mentor to university students and a messenger to the public about the power of sleep.
鈥淚 don鈥檛 know anyone who has as much on his plate as he does, but he still makes time to mentor his students and really thrives on seeing them succeed,鈥� said Cammie Mitchell (IPHY 鈥�21) who did her undergraduate honors thesis in Wright鈥檚 lab and intends to go to medical school.
For his research, Wright collaborates with colleagues at the Anschutz Medical campus for a host of unusual experiments in which subjects鈥� meals, light exposure, activity and sleep patterns are tightly controlled 鈥� sometimes for several days.
One study, published in PNAS in 2018, showed that pulling an all-nighter just once鈥攁s we do when we work a night shift, fly internationally or stay up studying鈥攃an disrupt levels and time- of-day patterns of more than 100 proteins in the blood, including those that influence blood sugar, energy metabolism and immune function.
Another found that burning the candle all week and trying to 鈥渃atch up on sleep鈥� on the weekend not only doesn鈥檛 work well, but could actually worsen metabolic health in some ways.
The good news, particularly for Coloradans with access to great wilderness locales: Wright鈥檚 research shows that one easy way to recalibrate an off-kilter body clock, or circadian rhythm, is to go camping. It found that volunteers who hit the woods for a week in the summer were exposed to far more light by day and far less light by night than usual. When they returned to civilization, their internal clocks had shifted, with the sleep promoting hormone melatonin kicking in nearly two hours earlier at night and waning earlier in the morning, prompting them to wake up earlier and more refreshed.
鈥淟iving in our modern environments can significantly delay our circadian timing, and late circadian timing is associated with many health consequences,鈥� Wright said. 鈥淏ut our research showed as little as a weekend camping trip can reset it.鈥�
Wright notes that people鈥檚 natural circadian rhythm, or 鈥渃hronotype鈥� varies, with some naturally rising earlier and going to sleep earlier, while others tend to stay up later, and others falling somewhere in between. Emerging research suggests that timing our activity, meals and even medications around these differing ebbs and flows could lead to better health. But unlike with cholesterol and hormones, there is no blood test for chronotype yet.
Ken Wright receiving his award from at the SLEEP 2022 Conference.
He and his students are working on that too.
鈥淚f we want to be able to fix the timing of a person鈥檚 circadian rhythm, we need to know what that timing is,鈥� said Wright. 鈥淩ight now, we do not have an easy way to do that, but our research shows it can be done.鈥�
Christopher Depner worked with Wright on numerous studies as a postdoctoral fellow at CU Boulder and credits him with inspiring him to chart a similar career course.
He鈥檚 now an assistant professor in the Department of Health and Kinesiology at the University of Utah, has his own lab and is 鈥減aying it forward鈥� with his own students.
鈥淭he research environment Ken has created there provides truly unique opportunities to gain hands-on experience conducting large-scale clinical research,鈥� said Depner. 鈥淭here are truly only a few places in the world where students have such an opportunity.鈥�
In addition to educating his students, Wright also makes a point of speaking publicly and with media regularly about what he and his colleagues are learning.
鈥淲e know now that insufficient sleep contributes to all the major health problems, from obesity and Type 2 diabetes to heart disease, cancer and neurodegenerative disorders. But the reality is, not everyone is going to read our papers,鈥� he says. 鈥淚 think we have a responsibility as scientists to help educate the public about what we are finding out.鈥�
Wright will receive his award at the SLEEP 2022 Conference June 4 to 8 in Charlotte, North Carolina.
Professor Ken Wright is breaking new ground in the burgeoning field of sleep research and bringing his students along for the ride. He has won the Mary A. Carskadon Outstanding Educator Award.If you are a person who is proud of burning the candle at both ends鈥攕ay, a college student, first responder or military personnel鈥攁nd surviving on less than optimal sleep, here鈥檚 a message you might not want to hear: You can鈥檛 fool Mother Nature.
Ken Wright
If you aren鈥檛 getting enough sleep鈥�7 hours is the average minimum for adults鈥攐r not sleeping at night, when the body鈥檚 long-evolved, natural circadian rhythms say it鈥檚 time to sleep, you and your brain aren鈥檛 performing to your maximum capability on many functions, including reaction times and simple cognition, according to current and newly published research from the Sleep and Chronology Laboratory at the University of Colorado Boulder.
鈥淓veryone is vulnerable,鈥� says Kenneth P. Wright, Jr., professor of integrative physiology at CU Boulder and the director of the Sleep and Chronology Laboratory. 鈥淭here is no such thing as a superhuman who is not vulnerable.鈥�
And to study that vulnerability, Wright and the rest of the lab, along with colleagues from CU Boulder, Northwestern University and the University of California, San Diego, are hard at work researching the impact of sleep deprivation and 鈥渃ircadian misalignment,鈥� thanks to a prestigious U.S. Navy Multi-University Research Initiative grant.
The grant supports an ongoing project, which also recently saw a published paper in Oxford University鈥檚 Sleep Research Society, to examine the impact of circadian misalignment and sleep disruption on the human microbiome, Wright says.
More than 40 percent of U.S. military personnel report sleeping five hours or less per night and are often required to sleep at times out of alignment with natural circadian rhythms. Meanwhile, firefighters in the Western United States routinely work 48-hour shifts and 20 percent of the U.S. population does shift work at night or in the early morning hours. 麻豆淫院, too, are known to pull all-nighters.
鈥淚t鈥檚 not just the military,鈥� Wright says. 鈥淭hink about medical residents, firefighters, police officers, paramedics. Being awake at night goes against our fundamental biology. 鈥� Long work hours and being awake at night just does not make sense from a health and safety perspective.鈥�
According to the paper, 鈥淭rait-like vulnerability of higher-order cognition and ability to maintain wakefulness during combined sleep restriction and circadian misalignment,鈥� sleep restriction and circadian misalignment can have immense health, performance and safety consequences, including, 鈥渞educed effectiveness, efficiency, resilience and readiness, a greater risk of motor vehicle crashes and injuries, higher rates of posttraumatic stress disorder and risky health behaviors in military personnel, more safety violations and citizen complaints for police officers, and greater risk of metabolic disease and cancer.鈥�
To get these results, the team ran 20 healthy adults (average age 25.7) through a sleep wringer.
In an effort to capture data that would illuminate the effects of longer-term sleep deprivation and circadian misalignment, the subjects completed a 39-day protocol: Two weeks of monitored sleep at home; four days in the lab, including one 鈥渟leep opportunity鈥� of eight hours, followed by two nights of just three hours of sleep; three days of unscheduled sleep at home; cognitive testing; rinse, and repeat.
Our biology has evolved over hundreds of thousands of years, so that is a blink in the eye of evolution. Our biology is hard-wired to evolve with the cycle of the sun."
Many similar studies focus on just one or two tasks, but in order to assess 鈥渕ultiple cognitive domains,鈥� subjects were asked to perform a number of functions, including reaction time, math problems, and tasks to measure executive function, such as locating a car in a large parking lot or a child on a playground. They also were tested on their ability to stay awake.
鈥淲e put them in a sleep-conducive environment, their head at a 35-degree angle in a chair like a La-Z-Boy, we dim the lights, and they sit there and try to stay awake,鈥� Wright says.
Wright鈥攁n unabashed proselytizer for good 鈥渟leep hygiene鈥濃€攕ays the results demonstrate clear negative impacts of circadian misalignment and sleep deprivation on cognitive function. The research points to a need to take the problem seriously and 鈥減ersonalize countermeasures,鈥� since different people and different situations may call for different tools to mitigate the problem.
Related story: Sleeping too much鈥攐r too little鈥攂oosts heart attack riskIn the broadest sense, Wright says, there is a need for more sleep education and improvement of sleep environments for everyone, not just military personnel, first responders and the like. And he believes sleep should become a basic biomarker during doctor visits, alongside blood pressure and heart rate.
More specifically, Wright says managers should pay closer attention to research showing marked differences in cognitive performance when workers are sleep deprived, particularly if they work night or early-morning hours. For example, first responders who work a night schedule should be given more time off to recover.
Schools should take sleep into account when scheduling and schools should educate students鈥攖omorrow鈥檚 parents鈥攁bout sleep hygiene鈥攖he importance of natural daylight, for example, and limiting light before bedtime, he says.
Enhanced, appropriate lighting, such as more sunlight, has been shown to improve outcomes for dementia patients and infants in intensive-care units, Wright says.
鈥淎rchitects, urban planners and government decision makers can all use light to promote health,鈥� he says.
Humans are the only species with the ability to create artificial light and thereby interfere with its own natural circadian rhythms. But with only about a century of widespread artificial light under its belt, Wright says, Homo sapiens hasn鈥檛 had nearly enough time to adapt. People may not know it, but sleep hygiene has serious long-term implications for human health.
鈥淥ur biology has evolved over hundreds of thousands of years, so that is a blink in the eye of evolution. Our biology is hard-wired to evolve with the cycle of the sun,鈥� he says.
Given the American tendency to work long hours and, often, skimp on sleep, changing habits may seem like an uphill battle. But Wright sees a parallel in smoking.
鈥淲e鈥檙e at the point now where we were with smoking. We used to think it was OK; doctors smoked. Then we started to recognize there were some issues and we realized, 鈥極K, smoking wasn鈥檛 good,鈥欌€� he says. 鈥淭hat鈥檚 where we are now with sleep. Smoking kills you decades later, as do poor diet and physical inactivity. It鈥檚 the same thing with sleep loss. This is an opportunity to improve sleep health in the population.鈥�
If you are a person who is proud of burning the candle at both ends鈥攕ay, a college student鈥攁nd surviving on less than optimal sleep, here鈥檚 a message you might not want to hear: You can鈥檛 fool Mother Nature.