Aging and Jet-Lagged? This Simple Breakfast Hack May Help Your Circadian Rhythm

Travel offers a buffet of new experiences, but jet lag frequently spoils the meal. The problem is not merely a misalignment between your internal circadian rhythms and your new time zone, but also a discord among the various ‘mini-clocks’ within your body.

As we age, this dissonance tends to get louder. However, new research published in “Chaos” by a team from Northwestern University and the Santa Fe Institute suggests there might be a tasty solution: a well-timed, hearty breakfast.

Jet lag arises when your internal circadian rhythms, which regulate everything from sleep to metabolism, clash with local time. Intriguingly, the human body doesn’t have just one internal clock; it has many.

Each of these circadian systems, present in nearly every cell type in the body, relies on different environmental cues for calibration. For example, your brain’s central clock takes its cue from sunlight, while clocks in other organs might depend on meal times.

Previous research primarily simplified the body’s complex circadian systems, often focusing on a single clock or time cue.

“Most studies primarily focus on one particular time cue or a single clock,” remarked author Yitong Huang. “Important gaps remain in our understanding of the synchronization of multiple clocks under conflicting time cues.”

However, the researchers in this study took a different approach. They developed a comprehensive mathematical model that simulates the interactions between multiple internal clocks. This model showed that as we age, the communication between these clocks weakens, and their responsiveness to environmental cues like light diminishes. The net result? Older individuals are more prone to jet lag and find it harder to recover.

But here comes the groundbreaking part. By simulating a series of scenarios, the researchers discovered that eating a substantial morning meal could help resynchronize these internal clocks.

It seems that adjusting meal timings, specifically opting for a substantial breakfast over late-night snacking, may quicken recovery from jet lag and perhaps even mitigate certain effects of aging.

“Having a larger meal in the early morning of the new time zone can help overcome jet lag,” added Huang. “Constantly shifting meal schedules or having a meal at night is discouraged, as it can lead to misalignment between internal clocks.”

This discord among internal clocks can amplify the symptoms of jet lag and perhaps make the aging clock tick faster.

The team is now looking to extend their research by exploring what makes some internal clocks more resilient than others.

Their ultimate aim? To provide more targeted recommendations that could not only make jet lag a thing of the past but also offer insights into maintaining circadian health as we age.

In essence, the research opens up a new vista in understanding how lifestyle choices, like meal timing, can have a profound impact on our biological rhythms. It suggests that to realign our biological clocks, we might need to start by aligning our meal times, beginning with a robust breakfast.

Source: 10.1063/5.0157524

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