Professor Tim Spector on social jet lag and how it's affecting your health

A simple habit so many of us fall into may be having more of an effect on our health than we think. Health science company ZOE, founded by Professor Time Spector, has delved deeper into the links between nutrition and health – as well as how that influences our sleep and how to stay alert. “Many of us go to bed early and wake up early Monday to Friday but go to bed later or wake up later on weekends,” says an article on the ZOE website. “We call it “social jet lag” — relatively minor shifts in your daily sleep-wake cycle.” A study by ZOE found that ‘social jet lag was associated with a poorer-quality diet’.

The study also showed that ‘for people with social jet lag, there were also measurable differences in their gut microbiomes’. “And these were only partly explained by diet,” the article says. “Notably, there were more gut bacteria that researchers have deemed “unfavourable.” READ MORE: Cheap and simple blood test ‘could identify people at highest risk of dying from heart failure’ A paper ZOE published in 2020 investigated how responses to food varied between individuals, reads the article, forming part of the largest in-depth nutritional research programme in the world.

ZOE analysed how people’s blood sugar and blood fat levels responded to different meals. “After eating, your body breaks down carbohydrates into glucose, which then enters your bloodstream.

There, the glucose circulates around your body before it’s used or stored for energy. After a couple of hours, your glucose levels return to baseline,” explains ZOE. “It’s a similar story with fats — after a meal, levels of fat in your blood rise steadily — much slower than your glucose levels.