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Sleep and Circadian Alterations and the Gut Microbiome: Associations or Causality?

  • Sleep and 3D (Cancer, Cardiovascular, Metabolic Diseases) (D Gozal, Section Editor)
  • Published:
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Abstract

Purpose of Review

This short review is aimed at presenting the most recent literature investigating the potential causal links between alterations in sleep/circadian cycle and changes in the gut microbiota.

Recent Findings

Data in mice and humans indicate that sleep disturbances modify the gut microbiota and that pre/probiotic-induced alterations of the microbiota disrupt sleep architecture. Moreover, data in rodents and preliminary results in humans indicate that by either environmentally altering the light/dark cycle or by genetically modifying the circadian system, alterations in gut microbiota will occur. Furthermore, bidirectional interactions between the circadian and hypoxic response systems have emerged, suggesting that the circadian clock could protect against heart attacks.

Summary

Taken together, the current and still scarce cumulative evidence clearly reinforces the concept that improved understanding of the role played by the gut microbiome in sleep diseases may potentially contribute to devising future treatments of sleep disorders via targeted restoration of the microbiota.

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Funding

This work was supported in part by the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness (Instituto de Salud Carlos III; FIS-PI14/00004, FIS-PI14/00280). This work was partially funded by the CERCA Programme of Generalitat de Catalunya. DG is supported by National Institutes of Health grants HL130984 and NS034939 and the Herbert T. Abelson Chair in Pediatrics.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Heart Failure Unit, Department of Cardiology, Hospital del Mar, Passeig Marítim 25-29, 08003, Barcelona, Spain

    Núria Farré

  2. Heart Diseases Biomedical Research Group, IMIM (Hospital del Mar Medical Research Institute), Barcelona, Spain

    Núria Farré

  3. Department of Medicine, Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, Barcelona, Spain

    Núria Farré

  4. Department of Pneumology, Hospital Clinic Barcelona, Barcelona, Spain

    Marta Torres

  5. CIBER de Enfermedades Respiratorias, Madrid, Spain

    Marta Torres & Ramon Farré

  6. Section of Pediatric Sleep Medicine, Department of Pediatrics, Pritzker School of Medicine, Biological Sciences Division, The University of Chicago, Chicago, IL, USA

    David Gozal

  7. Unitat Biofísica i Bioenginyeria, Facultat de Medicina, Universitat de Barcelona, Barcelona, Spain

    Ramon Farré

  8. Institut Investigacions Biomediques August Pi Sunyer, Barcelona, Spain

    Ramon Farré

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  1. Núria Farré
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  2. Marta Torres
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Correspondence to Núria Farré.

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Núria Farré, Marta Torres, David Gozal, and Ramon Farré declare no conflicts of interest.

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This article does not contain any studies with human or animal subjects performed by any of the authors.

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This article is part of the Topical Collection on Sleep and 3D (Cancer, Cardiovascular, Metabolic Diseases)

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Farré, N., Torres, M., Gozal, D. et al. Sleep and Circadian Alterations and the Gut Microbiome: Associations or Causality?. Curr Sleep Medicine Rep 4, 50–57 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s40675-018-0100-0

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