New Drug for Treating Jet Lag and Work Shift Disorders Identified

A team of researchers have identified a protein that can be a target for drugs that would help people recover from jet lag and help adjust their circadian rhythms during rotational shifts at work, according to a study released Thursday.

The study which was published in the journal Cell claimed that an internal body clock helps all creatures to virtually synchronize their bodily functions to the 24-hour daily cycle of light and dark.

However, traveling to a different time zone and rotational shifts at work disrupts the body's circadian clock.

The researchers also claimed that it can take up to a day for the body to adjust to each hour that the clock is shifted, resulting in several days of fatigue, indigestion, poorer cognitive performance and sleep disturbance.

Giles Duffield, associate professor of biological sciences at Notre Dame and a member of the University's Eck Institute for Global Health, along with Kevin Flanagan, a University alumnus and now a doctoral student at Washington University in St. Louis revealed that the protein SIK1 plays a pivotal role in preventing the body from adjusting too quickly to changes in the environment.

They also identified approximately 100 genes that the body switches on in response to light.

"It would appear that SIK1 plays a common role in our circadian clocks found throughout our body, and works as a hand-brake on our ability to shift our biorhythms and adjust to new time zones, whether these are real or artificial, such as those produced during shift work schedules," said Duffield.