feast or famine

The last month has been pretty brutal for me in terms of travel: it seems like every few days I'm hopping on an airplane and crossing time zones (for both personal and professional reasons). I don't have it nearly as bad as certain physicists, but my schedule is only going to get worse come January, when I start hawking my forthcoming book in earnest. Getting around is so much easier for Jen-Luc Piquant, who can zip around the world in Cyberspace via that cunning series of tubes that is the Internet. I've long envied her ease of transport. So I was pleased to learn that Boeing is creating a plane called the 787 Dreamliner specifically designed to help combat the causes of jet lag, based on a battery of experiments on several hundred people.

Just what are those causes? According to the folks at Boeing, the list includes lighting, pressure, humidity, and air quality. At least, those are the factors they can address with their innovative new design, which incorporates wider seats and aisles, a wider cabin, larger lavatories (a boon to those who aspire to join the Mile-High Club, or less ambitious folks, like me, who would just like to be able to maneuver a little better in a cramped and tiny space) and windows that are 65% larger than those in conventional airplanes. Those windows are also outfitted with electro-chromic window shades to passengers can dim them while still being able to see outside. Light-emitting diodes simulate both the brightness and color of the aircraft's ceiling to give a sense of daylight when needed, or simulate a lovely nighttime sky. Oh, and they're incorporating an innovative new air purification method called gaseous filtration to reduce airborne contaminants that Boeing's studies have found cause many of the symptoms associated with low humidity.

It's nice to see an airplane manufacturer that actually cares about passenger comfort and well-being, since the airlines themselves seem to be hell-bent on making flying the not-so-friendly skies as unpleasant as possible these days. But we're skeptical about how much the new design can actually combat jet lag. At best, it might alleviate the symptoms. Because, let's face it, the real cause of jet lag is flying across all those different time zones and having to readjust one's internal clock/circadian rhythms to be in sync with one's new location. Even Boeing spokesman Mike Sinnett admits "We can't guarantee people won't have any jet lag, but it should be a much better experience." 

It's too early for the new design to benefit everyone who flew to a different time zone for the Thanksgiving holidays this year, but I was pleased to stumble upon the Anti-Jet Lag Diet, apparently practiced by athletes, among others, to reduce the effects of crossing time zones over and over and over again. The most notable strategy is alternating days of feast and famine from a few days before, to a few days after, your planned trip across time zones.

On feast days, you're supposed to eat three full meals, with breakfast and lunch being particularly high in protein, since it supposedly helps the body produce the chemicals it would normally produce when it's time to wake up. ("Take second helpings!" the site suggests, although Jen-Luc points out that this is hardly good advice for a nation already beset by an "obesity epidemic.") Feast-day dinners, in contrast, should be rich in carbohydrates to help the body produce those chemicals it would normally produce around bedtime. Fast days consist of three small meals low in both carbs and calories: salads, soups, half-slices of bread... or you can just make do with crappy airline food in minuscule portions (no longer complimentary on most domestic flights).

I don't know if the Anti-Jet Lag Diet works or not, but I inadvertently followed it for my Thanksgiving holiday. How handy is it that the day before is a fast day, and you have the perfect excuse to pig out on the holiday itself? ("I need a third helping -- it's a feast day! My internal clock demands it!") Speaking of Thanksgiving and turkey, everyone seems to be bringing up the whole turkey-and-tryptophan issue in honor of the holiday, but I wrote a short article on the subject last year -- about growing scientific evidence that the amino acid might play a vital role in sleep and mood control, even if it's not to blame for that sleepy feeling after a big Thanksgiving feast -- and don't really feel inclined to rehash everything here, especially since Coturnix has posted such a good recap over at A Blog Around the Clock. Instead, I'll just point you to this interesting piece in Wired last year about the next generation of cooking tools for science-minded cooks.

The article opens with an anecdote about Michael Chu, founder of the Cooking for Engineers Website, who came up with an ingenious method for cooking the family's Thanksgiving turkey. He stuffed an open 24-ounce can of beer into the stomach cavity (where the stuffing usually goes) and smoked the turkey while steaming it from the inside with the evaporating beer. Now, I know from watching Emeril on the Food Network that beer-brine chicken and similar dishes purportedly are tastier and more moist than similar meats prepared in more traditional fashion, but it would never have occurred to me to just stick an open can of beer into a turkey to test tat theory. I guess that takes an engineer. Chu himself admits that he's not sure the beer adds much flavor to the chicken, but the finished product was apparently tasty, nonetheless.

Let's chat for a moment about what happens when you drop that piece of succulent breast or thigh meat onto the shag carpet that adorns the dining room. Assuming the family dog doesn't beat you to it, do you pick it up and pop it in your mouth, or reluctantly toss it for fear of contamination? I've always been a fan of the "five-second rule" myself, but I'm starting to have second thoughts about the wisdom of that after reading about a series of experiments performed by Paul Dawson, a food scientist at Clemson University. Dawson and his colleagues wanted to know how much time it would take salmonella to stick to bologna and bread, respectively, after the food items were exposed to contaminated wood, tile and carpet surfaces.

They found that salmonella can survive for up to four weeks on dry surfaces, in sufficiently high concentration to be transferred to foods. (Yikes!) Not only that, but the salmonella can be transferred to the foods almost instantly, five-second rule be damned. Tile is the worst such surface in terms of rapid transfer rate: 99% of bacteria cells were transferred from the contaminated tile to the bologna after five seconds of exposing the poor unsuspecting luncheon meat to the tile. About 68% of bacteria cells were transferred when the contaminated surface was wood, and less than 5% were transferred when the contaminated surface was carpet. So, you can probably eat that bit of dropped turkey meat with little chance of ingesting some horrible food-borne illness if your dining area is carpeted. The risks are higher if the floor is wood, and if it's tile -- well, I'd almost be tempted to don a haz-mat suit for Thanksgiving dinner at this point, just to be on the safe side. (Dawson himself says the study "demonstrates the ability of bacteria to survive and cross-contaminate other foods even after long periods of time on dry surfaces, thus reinforcing the importance of sanitation on food contact to minimize the risk of foodborne illnesses.")

Alternatively, I could invest in a spiffy new handheld spectroscopic detector for food inspection. Okay, such a thing isn't yet available for consumer use, and it hasn't been widely deployed on production lines in the food packaging industry, either, but the technology certainly exists, thanks to a group of researchers at the University of Manchester in England. Last year, they announced their new technique for food inspection based on infrared spectroscopy and software algorithms originally designed for genetics. They can identify spoiled meat in just 60 seconds, as opposed to the hours it usually takes using existing methods.

The new technique doesn't detect the bacteria itself, but the biochemicals produced when microbes break down food; when the concentration of bacteria reaches 10 million bacteria per square centimeter for chicken -- 1 million for beef -- they break down "nitrogenous compounds." The result: spoiled meat, with that distinct rotting odor familiar to anyone who forgets to clean the leftovers out the refrigerator for a few months. Handheld spectroscopic detectors are already being used to detect weapons and toxic materials, and the Manchester researchers are confident they can come up with a similar device to detect spoilage in foods -- even eggs or milk, which require a bit more sensitivity to the presence of pathogens. Andrew Proctor, a food sciences professor at the University of Arkansas in Fayetteville, is also using IR spectroscopy, in his case, to detect nerve tissue in minced meat, one of the factors implicated in the spread of mad cow disease.

So as you recover from the holiday meal, feasting on leftovers and taking advantage of the weekend sales to get a head start on your Christmas shopping, remember -- on top of everything else you're thankful for -- to thank science, for continually pushing the envelope of human knowledge to keep us healthy, well-fed, and safe from the marauding billions of microbes out there just itching to wreak havoc with our gastrointestinal tracts.

I'm especially thankful that the Acoustical Society of America is holding its fall meeting in Hawaii, this year, which is where I'm heading on Monday. Boeing can't put together its new anti-jet lag planes fast enough. But hey -- sun, sand and surf, baby! My next post will be from my Honolulu hotel. Aloha!

Comments

[Blake Stacey]

"My next post will be from my Honolulu hotel. Aloha!"

[Looks outside at Somerville, Massachusetts.]

[Shakes fist at fate.]

[Louise]

Aloha and welcome to the islands! The Sheraton Waikiki has beautiful postcard views and is a spot where you can see turtles close to shore. My November 6 post has me on the beach near the hotel. (Someone tell Sean that airfares are low if he wants to surprise a fiancee.) I would love to tell you more, maybe over lunch.

[Fred Ross]

You're a martial artist. Ask around your dojo about jet lag. I study an internal kung fu style, and one of the things I picked up was a set of techniques that appear to reset the Circadian clock.

I'm a physicist, and a bit obsessive about testing things, so the two metrics I work with are my internal clock (when I'm in a stable time zone it's good to five minutes usually), and a qualitative "misery index." The clock declares that the techniques work flawlessly (N=4 with the technique, two in each direction, N=2 without, one in each direction...not significant yet). The misery index says the same. During one of the controls, a young mother in the Frankfurt airport looked at me when I tried to ask her something in German, and said in English, "You really need to sleep. You look awful." With the techniques, I stepped off the plane in Corsica bright and chipper and ready for a swim.

And the techniques themselves? Rubbing certain acupuncture points for about thirty seconds at intervals during the flight. Trivial, though your fellow passengers may look at you funny when you take off your shoes to rub the side of your big toe at one point.

Oh, and they reset wakefulness, but appear not to affect the clock that controls the digestion, which thereafter shifts at about an hour a day towards the wakefulness clock (yes, I measured that, too).

[Alethea]

Jet lag: use your common sense. Drinking a lot of water never hurt under any circumstances, and it means you have to get up, send your blood a little more quickly around your body, and squish some of that lymph out of your lower legs and back into the bloodstream by walking to the toilet more frequently. The famine/feast thing works to some extent, because melatonin levels may also be related to intestinal production after meals, as you probably know since you referred to the Blog Around the Clock post. [One uses the same eating rhythm to prepare for the fast day of Yom Kippur, for the Jewish tradition. Is that why everyone is so exhausted by the end? ;-)] However, natural, intense daylight is the best thing for that pineal gland of yours, to get it to STOP making the melatonin when you don't want it (during the day in the new time zone). So, if you arrive early, get outside as much as possible or close to a window that first day. If you arrive late, go to bed. You're probably tired, anyhow. Stay in the dark even if you wake up at 3AM; don't eat, even if you are hungry, until a plausible breakfast time, after which you can expect to be wide awake, and pretty tired 15 hours later. It won't kill you to be a little hungry then (you can drink, though). If you have to cave in, go for a milk product. I find this gets me on track pretty quickly and I've been in a heck of a lot of time zones by now.

[TBB]

Alethea makes some good points. Also, there were two articles I was looking at (strangely) just prior to Jennifer's posting this about use of blue light for depression, jet lag, etc. It's something to think about, and maybe the use of blue lighting on planes would help.

"SALT LIKE CITY— Treatment for patients with circadian rhythm disorders is being cast in a new light—blue. Researchers believe that blue light therapy, though still in the experimental stage, could help patients with certain types of sleep and mood disorders, improve alertness during shift work, overcome jet lag, and even help resolve circadian disruptions in astronauts during spaceflight."
http://www.neuropsychiatryreviews.com/sep06/blue.html

Here was another one about blue light:
http://www.lrc.rpi.edu/resources/news/enews/Apr05/general245.html

[Juno888]

..Just like cities grew up around the harbours and
later around the train stations,
so will new cities grow up around our larger airports.