If you and your travel companions fly frequently and find that your
thinking is muddy, there could be a medical reason to explain it.
According to researchers in England, a study of airline cabin crews
reveals that frequent cases of jet lag after a long period of time can
shrink the human brain.
A University of Bristol research team found that temporal lobe regions
of the brain critical to memory became smaller after five years of regular
jet lag exposure, accompanied by memory impairment and high levels of the
stress hormone cortisol.
The findings may have broad implications for airline staff and may apply
to non-flying people who suffer sleep deprivations, such as shift workers
and parents of young children.
Crew members with similar amounts of flight time, but who had longer
intervals between long haul trips, did not suffer the same way. Evidence
of impaired thinking ability in cabin crews subjected to repeated jet lag
emerged in a previous study by the same research team.
It is not known how long the brain changes persisted, or whether they
are reversible.
