Gene that predicts time of day you will die

Scientists have for the first time discovered a common gene variant that influences when you will wake up each day and the time of the day you are most likely to die, a new study has claimed.

Researchers identified the gene variant that affects virtually the entire population responsible for up to an hour a day of your tendency to be an early riser or night owl.

The discovery also finds this genetic variant helps determine the time of day a person is most likely to die.

The surprising findings, could help with scheduling shift work and planning medical treatments, as well as in monitoring the conditions of vulnerable patients.

"The internal 'biological clock' regulates many aspects of human biology and behaviour, such as preferred sleep times, times of peak cognitive performance, and the timing of many physiological processes. It also influences the timing of

acute medical events like stroke and heart attack," said first author Andrew Lim.

"Previous work in twins and families had suggested that the lateness or earliness of one's clock may be inherited and animal experiments had suggested that the lateness or earliness of the biological clock may be influenced by specific genes," adds Lim, Assistant Professor in the Division of Neurology at the University of Toronto.

Lim and his colleagues compared the wake-sleep behaviour of individuals with their genotypes. These findings were later verified in a group of young volunteers.

They discovered a single nucleotide near a gene called "Period 1" that varied between two groups that differed in their wake-sleep behaviour. At this particular site in the

genome, 60 per cent of individuals have the nucleotide base adenine (A) and 40 per cent have guanine (G).

As there are two sets of chromosomes, in any given individual, there's about a 36 per cent chance of having two As, a 16 per cent chance of having two Gs, and a 48 per cent chance of having a mixture of A and G at this site.

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