I thought if you would be going somewhere on that "bird bird" flying high in the sky you might want to read this review. My sister sent this article to me this morning since her husband is getting ready to go to Atlanta he has a severe problem with handling jet lag. I will give you the entire article to read; it may be worth trying sometime to see if it really works. I have a problem with jet lag and will try next time I fly. Thought I would pass on for your leisure reading.
Ceil
Skip the pretzels: starving may fend off jet lag By Julie Steenhuysen - Thu May 22, 12:57 PM PDT
Provided by:
73% of users found this article helpful.
Normally, the body's natural circadian clock in the brain dictates when to wake, eat and sleep, all in response to light. But it seems a second clock takes over when food is scarce, and manipulating this clock might help travelers adjust to new time zones, they said.
"A period of fasting with no food at all for about 16 hours is enough to engage this new clock," said Dr. Clifford Saper of Harvard Medical School, whose study appears in the journal Science.
He said a person from the United States traveling to Japan must adjust to a 11-hour time change.
"Because the body's clock can only shift a small amount each day, it takes the average person about a week to adjust to the new time zone. And, by then, it's often time to come home," Saper said in a statement.
Saper and colleagues knew that when food is scarce, animals are able to override their normal biological clock to improve their chances of finding food.
Studies have shown that mice fed only during the time when they normally sleep shift their body clocks to this new schedule. "They would be awake and alert and ready to go an hour or two before a meal was due to appear to have maximal chance of getting the food," Saper said in a telephone interview.
"This is built into the brain. The problem is, nobody knew how it worked," he said.
He and colleagues set out to find this mechanism. They used a group of mice that had been genetically engineered to lack a master gene called BMAL1 that regulates the body's clock. They put this gene into the shell of a hollowed-out virus that acted as a vector to deliver the gene only to brain cells they were interested in studying.
When they put it into a small region of the hypothalamus known as the suprachiasmatic nucleus, which serves as the body's primary clock, the mice adjusted to a light-based schedule for waking and sleeping, but not eating.
"If you don't wake them up they will starve to death," Saper said.
However, when they restored the gene only in a section of the hypothalamus called the dorsomedial nucleus, which helps organize waking and feeding schedules, the mice adjusted to the eating schedule, but not daylight.
Saper said when food is scarce, this second clock can override the body's primary clock. He said these same clock genes are known to be in all mammals, including humans.
While skipping meals ahead of a long flight or night shift has not been proven to work in humans, it may be worth a try.
Howdy Carl and Ceil
All though I don't get jet lag, I know some folk's do. I hope this will help them.
This is a very fine and helpful post, my friend's.