A team of University biology professors under Provost Gene Block discovered that aged mice undergoing light-cycle shifts similar to the time zone changes that cause jet lag had higher death rates than the mice on normal light schedules. Researchers, however, said traveling internationally or working rotating shifts would not necessarily cause the same results in humans.
The work was published in the Nov. 7 issue of "Current Biology."
"What we observed, which was pretty surprising, was changing the light schedule hastened their deaths," said Dr. Alec Davidson, assistant professor at the Neuroscience Institute at Morehouse School of Medicine and researcher on the experiment.
The mice on delayed schedules required two to three days to recover, while the mice on advanced schedules needed ten days to recover in a resynchronization process similar to jet lag, according to Shin Yamaziki, biological sciences assistant professor at Vanderbilt University and researcher with the experiment.
Yamaziki added only one of the young mice died during the experiment while many of the older mice did.
"Young mice can easily adjust to phase shifts and new situations better than older mice," Yamazaki said. "If they're too old then they can't handle environmental change."
The researchers down played the importance of their results as it relates to humans.
This research "may not be comparable to human cases because mice are nocturnal," Yamazaki said.
Dr. Michael Sellix, post-doctoral biology researcher at the University who was also involved in the research, stated the results might not be critical to world travelers.
"We're not saying time zone travel will kill you, but there are clearly some detrimental effects of jet lag on health that certainly need to be researched more," Sellix said.
He explained the research might not relate to middle-aged adults either, since the mice they used were the equivalent of 80 years old to humans, but it might relate to elderly retirement home residents who are often not given fixed light and sleep schedules.
"It is certainly exciting research, though that's tempered by the fact that we need to research more," Sellix said.
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