Immunity Stronger At Night Than During Day

The immune system's battle against invading bacteria reaches its peak activity at night and is lowest during the day. Experiments with the laboratory model organism, Drosophila melanogaster, reveal that the specific immune response known as phagocytosis oscillates with the body's circadian rhythm, according to Stanford researchers who presented their findings at the American Society for Cell Biology (ASCB) 48th Annual Meeting, Dec. 13-17, 2008 in San Francisco.