A new study in mice suggests an unlikely cure for jet lag: oxygen deprivation. When the animals breathed air with about one-quarter to one-third less oxygen than usual, they adapted to a six-hour time change more rapidly than mice that breathed regular air, according to a report published Thursday in the journal Cell Metabolism. Oxygen is essential to humans, mice and other animals. The cells in our bodies need oxygen to convert carbohydrates into energy. That’s why we breathe it in all the time. A team of researchers from the Weizmann Institute of Science in Israel and the University of Bristol in England suspected oxygen might be useful for another reason as well — keeping our circadian systems in sync. The circadian system makes sure that all of the body’s cells are in tune with our master internal clock. Our daily cycle of eating and fasting helps with this. So does our body temperature, which falls in the hours before we go to sleep, then rises as we prepare to wake up. The researchers realized that both eating and temperature regulation are tightly linked to oxygen consumption. http://www.latimes.com/science/sciencenow/la-sci-sn-jet-lag-oxygen-20161020-snap-story.html
I just hope the airlines won't latch onto this finding to cut back even more than they already do on passenger compartment pressurization and ventilation. It might save on fuel, but it should be up to the passengers whether or not they use this technique to eliminate the effects of jet lag.
Given that modern aircraft are pressurized to cabin altitudes that result in partial O2 pressures between 70% and 80% of sea level, that would seem to indicate that reduced oxygen levels do NOT help.
We could only say that with confidence if we had studied a substantial body of passengers who had traveled with sea level partial pressure of oxygen. Such a body of data does not exist. One might use military pilots as a group who, presumably, fly with normal oxygen levels. However, they are physiologically distinct from the average passenger, so that any difference in recovery/avoidance of jet lag could be due to that.
True. I guess you could claim that people traveling with a normal ppO2 would have even worse jet lag, even though that effectively never happens.
Great. One more thing they can charge us for. "I'm sorry sir, but you're on the economy plan. We'll take the plastic bag off once we reach our destination."
