Healy Health Tip: Viagra for Jet Lag?
A terrific study on the neurobiology of jet lag just appeared in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, no fly-by-night journal, I assure you. It has created an international splash and serves up fodder for late-night TV. That's not because it happens to be an elegant study of biological clocks in hamster brains. Rather it's because the chemical the researchers from Buenos Aires used to successfully help the hamsters adjust to the equivalent of a forward time shift–such as a trip from New York to London–was none other than sildenafil. Viagra, that is. Even a low dose insufficient to affect male erectile function had a beneficial effect, though the higher doses worked better.
But before anyone, man or woman, runs out and starts using the stuff on their next transcontinental flight, remember that hamsters are not humans. And the lab study was only a crude simulation of a human out of sync with his time zone. Studies need to be done in controlled settings, and that will take time. Sure, the drug is out there and anyone can try it. But be warned.
There may be a particular risk of taking Viagra 30,000 feet in the air. Cabin oxygen gets thin up there, and prolonged flights are dehydrating. Since Viagra is known to cause blood-pressure drops and chest pain in those who have heart disease, this could be risky when you're flying high across the ocean far from a good emergency room. For now, I'd make those no-smoking flights Viagra-free too.
advertisement
