Can jet lag be cured by cherries or new drug?

The results of a study released Monday (Dec. 1) suggest that a cure for jet lag may be in sight.

It’s something called VEC-162, also known as tasilmelteon, developed by Maryland-based Vanda Pharmaceuticals.

The drug reportedly mimics the body clock in restoring melatonin, helping long-haul travelers adjust to new time zones, sleep soundly and awake feeling rested, apparently with minimal side effects. But additional studies need to be undertaken before tasilmelteon is made available to the public.

In the meantime, travelers remain on their own in the battle against the effects of jet lag.

Recently, I tried another supposed jet-lag remedy on a trip to L.A. from Rome: dried cherries, which are chock-full of melatonin.

I’d already tried everything else under the sun, from adjusting my diet to in-flight yoga. So it was either cherries or Viagra, which has recently been shown to be effective in shifting the circadian rhythms of hamsters (enough said).

All I had to do was eat a handful of dried cherries about 30 minutes before going to bed for nine days, starting on the night before departure. The flight left Rome around noon, then crossed nine time zones in 14 hours (with a brief layover at London’s Heathrow airport).

Of course, I also flew with earplugs and eyeshades, not to mention Ambien to help me sleep. Per usual, after the flight it took as many days as time zones crossed for me to get over the sleepless nights and zombie-like days engendered by jet lag.

And the return to Rome was even more brutal: L.A. to Zurich, Switzerland, arriving at 4 p.m., then a 10:45 p.m. flight to Tel Aviv, arriving at 3:30 a.m. After spending a week in Israel, I flew back to Rome at 6 in the morning, meaning I had to get to the Tel Aviv airport at 3 a.m.

To be frank, I’m not really sure the cherries helped. But I have a lot of them left over and they taste great on granola.

The National Sleep Foundation offers information and advice about jet lag.

— Susan Spano, Los Angeles Times staff writer

[Image: www.calcherry.com]

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This entry was posted on Thursday, December 4, 2008 at 7:30 am by Susan Spano and is filed under Business Travel, Frequent Flier, Global, Good Morning, Healthy Traveler. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a comment, or trackback from your own site.