Studies have shown that shift workers getting too little sleep at the wrong time of day may be increasing their risk of type-2 diabetes and obesity, external.
Others analyses suggest heart attacks are more common in night workers, external.
Prof Dijk added: "We of course know that shift work and jet lag is associated with negative side effects and health consequences.
"They show up after several years of shift work. We believe these changes in rhythmic patterns of gene expression are likely to be related to some of those long-term health consequences."
Prof Hugh Piggins, a body-clock researcher from the University of Manchester, told the BBC: "The study indicated that the acute effects are quite severe.
"It is surprising how large an effect was noticed so quickly, it's perhaps a larger disruption than might have been appreciated."
He cautioned that it was a short-term study so any lasting changes are uncertain, but "you could imagine this would lead to a lot of health-related problems".