THE old joke about your luggage arriving in better shape than you do after a long flight is funny only if you’re not suffering jet lag. For years, jet lag – that out-of-sync exhaustion that strikes after travel across too many time zones – has befuddled and intrigued researchers. They know it’s a temporary disruption of normal circadian or body clock rhythm, but they don’t know how to prevent it.
In recent years, scientists have made some interesting advances in minimising the effects of high-speed jet travel. Researchers have realised that jet lag is not just a problem of the brain “clock” being out of sync, as researchers believed for years, but also a disruption of other parts of the body that requires a multi-pronged approach.
