A pill for jet lag?
Jet lag has long been the business traveler's
nightmare, but a new scientific study has boosted hopes of a cure to the often
debilitating condition.
Research by a group of scientists from Kyoto
University in Japan, published in theScience magazine on Thursday, found that
the internal body clock might be able to be reset, overcoming the effects of jet
lag.
Tiredness, insomnia and other symptoms of jet lag occur when the
body's "circadian rhythm" - or body clock - is out of sync with nature's light
and dark hours. The temporary sleep disorder commonly affects those flying
across multiple time zones, as their body clock is often hours ahead - or behind
- their end location.
Michael Hastings, a neuroscientist at the
University of Cambridge and author of aScience article accompanying the
research, described the condition as "a blessing to circadian
biologists".
"The disruption of mental and physical well-being
immediately highlights the importance of our internal 'body clock,'" he wrote.
"It is also a curse because jet lag has so far eluded attempts at a cure."
According to the Kyoto University scientists, led by Yoshiaki Yamaguchi,
it takes around one day for the body to readjust to every 1-hour change in
environmental time.
However, mice that were genetically modified by the
team recovered from jet lag much quicker than usual, readjusting their behavior
almost immediately to 8-hour time-shifts, or changes to the light
cycle.
"This is equivalent to flying between Los Angeles and London
without the accompanying 'red-eye'," Hastings wrote.
These mice were
lacking receptors for the hormone arginine vasopressin (AVP), which Yamaguchi's
team found contributed to jet lag, by signaling to the "master clock" of the
brain, known as the suprachiasmatic nucleus, or SCN.
"Our results
identify vasopressin signaling as a possible therapeutic target for the
management of circadian rhythm (body clock) misalignment," Yamaguchi said in the
paper.
The benefits of such a treatment could be far reaching, according
to Hastings, and may address a "more insidious threat" than jet
lag.
"Epidemiology shows that rotational shift work is a killer,
increasing risks of cancer, and cardiovascular and metabolic diseases," he
wrote. "If the 24/7 society is here to stay, helping shift-workers adjust more
rapidly to their schedules by working with, rather than against, their SCN must
be a good thing."
