The role of high fat diet and the circadian clock in arterial thrombosis

The timing of onset of pathological thrombotic events, including myocardial infarction and stroke, display a cyclic pattern with peak incidence between 6am and noon. Such a 24 hr pattern suggests that a circadian “timer” contributes to thrombosis. However, a gap still exists in understanding the molecular mechanisms linking timing systems to disease events. A major hypothesis of this proposal is that the internal circadian clock plays a key role in hemostasis, and that disruption of circadian systems contributes to thrombotic events.