Study: Jet Lag May Be Mild Form of Altitude Sickness
Travel Blog • Michael Yessis • 07.05.07 | 11:23 AM ET
Maybe Viagra won’t solve the problem after all. Some of the symptoms of jet lag may actually be signs of mild altitude sickness, according to a study funded by Boeing and reported today in the New England Journal of Medicine. General aches and other complaints many travelers chalk up to jet lag may simply result from extended time in airplanes at high altitudes. For the study, volunteers spent 20 hours sitting in a chamber pressurized to the equivalent of 8,000 feet above sea level—a typical pressurization for an airplane cabin.
According to Reuters, the volunteers weren’t more likely to suffer from any acute symptoms of altitude sickness—nausea, vomiting and sleep disturbances—but after three to nine hours, they were “more likely than others to report backaches, headaches, shortness of breath, light-headedness and impaired coordination.”
It’s worth mentioning that the results benefit Boeing’s rollout of its new 787 planes. Because of the study, Reuters reports, Boeing will set the cabin pressure on the 787s to the equivalent of 6,000 feet, something other airplane manufacturers can’t easily do for various reasons involving cost and the properties of aluminum. Airplanes are typically built with aluminum bodies and, according to Reuters, Boeing’s 787s have fuselages made with a composite.
Related on World Hum:
* Latest Weapon in the War on Jet Lag: Viagra?
* ‘I Get Off a Plane, 17 Hours Out of Joint, and Tell Naked Secrets to a Person I Know I Don’t Trust’
* The Joy of Jet Lag
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Michael Yessis is the cofounder and coeditor-in-chief of World Hum.
