On Healthy Living

Instead of eating pretzels or other starchy foods for jet lag, fasting may actually work better to fend off jet lag before a long flight. 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, researchers report.

Dr. Clifford Saper of Harvard Medical School, whose study appears in the journal Science, says that a period of fasting with no food for at least 16 hours is enough to start the new clock. Saper says that if someone is traveling from the United States to Japan, they have to adjust to an eleven hour time change. That is really hard on the body.

Then, because of how the body’s clock works, it typically takes the average person about a week to adjust to the new time zone. And, by then, it’s often time to come home.

While researchers said that skipping food and fasting before a long flight hasn’t been proven, it’s worth a shot to see if jet lag can be prevented.

ff wrote this on May 29th, 2008 and filed it under Healthy Living |