Talia Hitt
Johns Hopkins University, MD·Medicine & Clinical Research·Early-career
During adolescence, many young people naturally shift toward later sleep schedules and become "night owls," which researchers call a late chronotype. Late sleep timing has been linked to youth-onset type 2 diabetes, a fast-progressing form of the disease.
- Fields
Medicine & Clinical Research
Physiology
- Topics
chronotype
circadian rhythm
chronobiology
- Grants
- 1 known grant, through Mar 2029
What they work on
- Test whether timing an oral glucose tolerance test to match each person's chronotype changes measured glucose tolerance and insulin sensitivity, in a randomized crossover study of late and non-late chronotype youth aged 17–23.
- Compare blood sugar spikes after eating when the first meal of the day is aligned or misaligned with chronotype, using standardized meals and continuous glucose monitoring.
- Explore whether delayed melatonin rhythms, measured under dim light, help explain abnormal glucose tolerance on morning tests in youth with late chronotype, in a pilot of 12 participants per group.
More about the research
However, the standard diabetes-risk test is usually given early in the morning. That time may fall during a night owl's biological night, when the body handles sugar less well. Morning testing could therefore make these young people look worse than they are and lead to misdiagnosis. This project asks whether scheduling tests and meals to match a person's own body clock changes how their blood sugar responds.
Why it matters
This work could help clinicians judge diabetes risk more accurately in older teens and young adults with late sleep schedules. These young people may be misdiagnosed when tested in the early morning. The findings may also inform guidance on timing diabetes tests and meals, and they could improve understanding of type 2 diabetes risk in an understudied group.
Known grants
From NIH and NSF research grants. Labs often have other funding we can't see.
Closest labs
Lauren Hartstein
University of Arizona, AZ·Psychology·Early-career
Assess whether families of 5- to 6-year-olds with difficulty falling asleep can implement and accept two evening light-reduction strategies, using adherence measures and qualitative parent interviews after a two-week trial.
Britni Belcher
University of Southern California, CA·Public Health & Epidemiology
Determine whether interrupting sitting with short bouts of moderate exercise over several days improves glucose homeostasis (blood sugar control) in 7–11-year-olds with overweight or obesity, measured by continuous glucose monitors and oral glucose tolerance tests.
Kendra Vehik
University of South Florida, FL·Public Health & Epidemiology
Identify early-life plasma microRNA signatures that predict future type 1 diabetes, using longitudinal blood samples from the TEDDY cohort of genetically at-risk children.
The school
Johns Hopkins University: 100 labs on PI Pages, $4.1B a year on research, 622 research doctorates a year.
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