New pill may end jet lag forever

TIRED, irritable and unable to sleep? Long haul travel may be getting a whole lot better according to these scientists who say they have found the answer to jet lag.

Will this end jet lag forever?

THAT feeling of fatigue, irritability and sleeplessness caused from crossing different time zones may be a thing of the past thanks to medical researchers who have developed a new pill that may end jet lag forever.

Scientists at McGill University and Douglas Mental Health University in Canada have come up with a pill that tricks the body’s circadian rhythm into thinking day is night and night is day.

Our circadian rhythm is our internal body clock that regulates our bodily functions over a 24 hour period such as appetite, sleep and temperature. It takes many of its cues from sunlight and tells the body when to rest and when to feel hungry.

International travel often interferes with this rhythm leaving your body feeling “jetlagged” and out of whack.

The new pill has been successfully tested on 16 people and researchers say it will not only benefit travellers, but shift workers as well.

Insomnia from international travel? This could be the answer.

Published in the Journal of FASEB (Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology), the researchers said that white blood cells contain biological clocks that are synchronised to control the body’s reaction to day and night.

The pill contains the steroid based compound glucocorticoid which can alter the makeup of our white cells and essentially reset our biological clock.

Dr Nicolas Cermakian, co-author of the report, said: “Animal studies have shown that our central clock (in the brain) sends signals to the clocks in our other organs.

“Glucocorticoids appear to play a central role in transmitting these signals. We studied the rhythmic expression of clock genes in white blood cells to see how they adjusted in response to glucocorticoids.”

While the pills have not yet been released for general use, the researchers say it paves the way for “innovative therapies” for sleep deprived sufferers.