n053  1314  19 May 83
BC-TRAVEL-JETLAG Adv22
(For release Sun., May 22)
By JANE E. BRODY
c. 1983 N.Y. Times News Service
    NEW YORK - Can you fly from New York to San Francisco and arrive
with your body and brain already set to Pacific time? What about New
York to Honolulu or Tokyo or, to change directions, Paris or Nairobi?
    For the vacationer who doesn't want to miss a minute of sightseeing
abroad, for the business executive who must be sharp at a meeting
soon after landing five time zones away from home, jet lag is a
proverbial nuisance. But according to one expert on biological
clocks, you need not waste part of your trip readjusting if you are
willing to eat and drink according to a formula he has devised.
    Dr. Charles F. Ehret, a senior scientist at the Argonne National
Laboratory in Illinois, has found that you can greatly diminish or
even eliminate entirely the disruptive symptoms of jet lag if you use
his diet to reset your internal clock in advance of your departure.
     Ehret's plan and other information about jet lag are described in
''Overcoming Jet Lag,'' which he wrote with Lynne Waller Scanlon
(Berkley Publishing, $4.95).
     Ehret says ''tens of thousands'' of people have tried his
anti-jet-lag diet and nearly all have found it to be highly
effective. It was developed after years of research on experimental
animals and human volunteers revealed that what you eat and drink,
how much and when can influence your body's natural rhythms. Though
many things are still not known about these rhythms, Ehret says
''enough tricks'' are already established to make it worth applying
them.
    Jet lag occurs when the body's circadian rhythms are out of sync
with the environment. Jet lag is far more than simply feeling tired
and hungry at the wrong times. It is a temporary mental and physical
dysfunction that cannot be quickly alleviated by taking a nap or by
forcing yourself to adopt the sleeping and eating pattern of your new
setting.
     Ehret's plan combines a number of so-called zeitgebers, or
synchronizers of body rhythms, in a way that he says enables the body
to make abrupt shifts in its natural cycles. Zeitgebers include
caffeine and related chemicals, size and contents of meals, alcohol,
light, exercise and social factors.
    The number of time zones you plan to cross determines how many days
in advance of your departure you should follow his scheme. For travel
within the continental United States, two days are probably enough,
but travel abroad requires four days on the diet plan. The system,
which basically alternates feast and fast and ends with a
high-protein breakfast, goes like this:
    1. Determine when breakfast time will be at your destination.
    2. Starting four days before the day you are to arrive, drink no
coffee, tea, caffeinated soft drinks or alcohol except between 3 and
5 p.m. Eat all meals at the regular times. The first day is a feast
day: Eat a hearty high-protein breakfast and lunch (eggs, cheese,
meats, high-protein cereal, cooked dried beans or peas) and a
high-carbohydrate dinner (pasta, pancakes, potatoes, rice, bread,
sweet dessert) that contains no high-protein food.
    3. On day two, follow a modified fast: Eat light meals of salads,
thin soups, fruits and juices. Keep carbohydrates, fats and calories
to a minimum.
    4. On day three, repeat the feast day.
    5. On day four (departure day), repeat the fast day. If you are
traveling eastward, consume caffeinated beverages (if you drink them
at all) only between the hours of 6 and 11 p.m. If you are traveling
westward, consume caffeinated drinks only in the morning. Drink no
alcoholic beverages on the plane.
    6. Brea your ''fast'' by having a high-protein breakfast at the
predetermined breakfast time in your destination city. Ehret suggests
ordering a special meal before your departure or asking the flight
attendant to save your dinner or, failing that, bring along an
appropriate breakfast. Before breakfast, sleep if you can, but no
later than that preset time. After breakfast, stay awake and active.
Leave your reading light on. You might try some isometric exercises
in the aisle or lavatory or in your seat. Eat the rest of your meals
that day according to mealtimes at your destination. If possible, eat
with other people (don't call room service and eat alone in your
room) since social interaction stimulates wakefulness.
    The high-protein meals, exercises and light are intended to
stimulate the body's active cycle. The high-carbohydrate meals
stimulate sleep. The modified fasts help to deplete the liver's store
of glycogen (a main muscle fuel) and prepare the body's clock for
resetting. Caffeine and its chemical relatives can cause your
biological rhythms to shift forward or backward, depending on the
time they are consumed. Between 3 and 5 p.m., their effect is neutral.
    
nyt-05-19-83 1613edt
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