Modest Exercise Can Cue Beneficial Changes to Body’s Internal Clock, Study in Mice Shows

Just an hour of exercise a day resets the muscular “clocks” in mice by about an hour, University of Florida Health researchers have found. If replicated in humans, the findings could have important implications for using exercise to reset disrupted biological clocks in older adults and night shift workers, the researchers said.

Circadian rhythms, the biological clock encoded in the DNA of all cells, keep life in tune with the rotation of the Earth and the cycle of night and day. Even short periods of exercise can shift the biological clock in mouse muscles, the researchers found. Exercise is a cue that helps to optimize cellular activity in muscles by fine-tuning energy use and storage as well as other functions, said Karyn Esser, Ph.D., a professor in the UF College of Medicine’s department of physiology and functional genomics.

The findings by Esser and postdoctoral associates Denise Kemler, Ph.D., and Christopher A. Wolff, Ph.D., were published in The Journal of Physiology.

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