It is a form of time change that globetrotters are familiar with. The aircrew of course; but also shift workers, by far the most numerous. How to digest their “jetlag”, their jet lag?
Admittedly, it is still only in mice, but researchers have identified a substance produced by the brain which, in high doses, would halve the effects of jet lag. We have been looking for something effective for a long time; it seems like a real lead.
Watches run our life
All our organs, all our vital functions have a rhythm with a different frequency. It is not a clock, as they say, that runs our life, but rather a collection of watches. We do not know the name of the great watchmaker, but that of one of his assistants, melatonin. It allows the body to orient itself in time by ensuring an interface between the outside and the inside of the organism, in particular the alternation of light / dark which triggers its secretion. Melatonin works mainly by increasing the drop in our temperature, which allows us to fall asleep. Who says “hormone”, says possibility of treatment, and we have indeed based very high hopes on melatonin. There is currently no real evidence of its effectiveness, and that’s a shame.
The VIP
But there is a very promising new substance. She has a name that is easy to remember: the VIP, the initials of Vasoactive Intestinal Polypeptide. A team of researchers from the University of St Louis, in the United States, published a study which shows that this VIP plays an essential role in our internal clock. It allows the cells to communicate with each other and to adjust their watch. In fact, our biological clock is made up of around 20,000 nerve cells. They form a small society in which each cell has its opinion on what time it is. They therefore need to come to an agreement.
Researchers have found that when there is an excess of VIP, cells lose their ability to synchronize. It is as if, beyond a certain dose, the cells become deaf to the information transmitted to them. Hence the hypothesis that this desynchronization could be beneficial. In other words, that faced with an internal disorder, the cells would look for external clues, in the environment, to manage to resynchronize themselves, and to put the internal clock back in working order. Rodent check: Jet lag was found to be halved by giving mice an extra dose of VIP on the day before a time zone change. A change that the researchers had simulated by changing the day-night rhythm of the mice. Now all that remains is to make medicine.
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