Big breakfast before flying, one way to beat jet lag

Since the dawn of air travel, we’ve felt guilty for gorging on fried food in dingy departure lounges in the middle of the night.
But red-eyed passengers finally have an excuse to scoff themselves silly – because a carb-heavy fry-up could help conquer jet lag.
Scientists have said foods which kick-start a big release of insulin, such as carbohydrates, could be crucial to resetting our body clock when we get out of sync with our natural cycle.
The researchers at Yamaguchi University, Japan, were trying to find ways of disrupting circadian rhythms, which govern how much our bodies want to sleep and when.
It has long been known that darkness prompts the body to feel sleepy by sending signals to a central ‘pacemaker’ in the brain.
In the same way, natural light makes us feel more awake.
But the researchers also said each of our millions of cells has its own miniature sleep pattern which, when they are all taken together, contribute to the body overall.
They found insulin could kick-start the tiny sleep patterns within each cell and encourage our bodies to change the time at which we want to fall asleep.
The study, published in the journal Cell Reports, tested the theory on mice which were fed unusually large meals during the night. Scans of the rodents’ liver cells found insulin, the hormone released by the pancreas when they ate food high in sugar and starch, had an effect on the cells’ circadian rhythms.
Dr Makoto Akashi, one of the lead researchers on the project, said: ‘In short, insulin may help the stomach clock synchronize with mealtime.
‘For example, for jet lag, dinner should be enriched with ingredients promoting insulin secretion, which might lead to a phase advance of the circadian clock, whereas breakfast would be the opposite.’
There would be side effects to using insulin to treat insomniacs, Dr Akashi warned.
And any treatment would not be as effective on patients with type 2 diabetes, who have problems producing the hormone.
The researcher added his theory needs more testing before it can be seen as conclusive.
But he claimed the research could be crucial to the world’s health – as defying our natural sleep patterns ‘carries a significant risk of diabetes, cardiovascular diseases, sleep disorders, and cancer’.