Don't let your mice grow up to be jet-setters. It'll kill 'em.
That's the finding of a new study that found that time shifts -- the equivalent of jet lag or rotating night work -- kill off elderly mice.
ScienceNOW has the details:
...biologist Gene Block of theUniversity of Virginia at Charlottesville and his colleagues exposedboth young mice (8-12 months) and old mice (27-31 months) tolight-cycle shifts over 8 weeks... While only17% of the old control mice died during the study period, 53% of theold mice whose cycles were moved forward died and 32% of the old micewhose cycles were moved backward died. Only one young mouse died duringthe experiment.
Should you stay away from the red-eye? The story notes that women who did shift work for more than 15 years had higher rates of some types of cancer.
