Finding ways to deal with jet lag is high on a lot of travelers’ to-do lists. Unfortunately, the human circadian clock isn’t something that we understand all that well yet, and that’s the key to solving the jet lag problem.
Scientists in Israel have found that varying the surrounding oxygen levels can impact the ability of mice to adapt to changing daylight hours. Like us, mice can get jet-lagged, which means they can be studied to figure out how we might deal with the problem ourselves.
The scientists found that minor changes to the concentration of oxygen within mice cells twice a day helped them deal with jet lag.
“It was extremely exciting to see that even small changes in oxygen levels were sufficient to efficiently reset the circadian clock,” says study lead author Gad Asher of the Weizmann Institute of Science in Rehovot, Israel. “The study actually raises a lot of important questions; although we show that the clock reset by oxygen is dependent on [a cell protein], we did not yet fully identify how [that protein] integrates within the core clock circuitry.”
What does this finding mean for human travelers? Not much yet. It will be some time before similar experiments can be tried on humans. However, in the near future there may be experiments in changing the oxygen level in airliners to minimize jet lag. Airlines are already looking at ways to alleviate airsickness by keeping cabin pressure levels closer to that of sea level.
Although the current experiment revolved around reducing oxygen levels to combat travel fatigue, researchers are interested in seeing the effect of increasing oxygen levels.
“We are … looking forward to seeing the outcome of these experiments—it will be interesting both from basic science and also from a practical standpoint,” Asher says. “I believe passengers might be more enthusiastic to inhale oxygen-enriched air to alleviate jet lag in contrast to low oxygen.”
It’s quite possible that a combination of higher cabin pressure and different oxygen levels could help to alleviate jet lag and make flights more pleasant. That’s something of great economic interest to airlines and travelers alike.