摘要：原文标题 :Well informedDoes melatonin work for jet lag?It can help. But it depends where you’re going了解更多信息褪黑素能缓解时差反应吗？有帮助。但这取决于你要去哪里[
原文标题 :
Well informed
Does melatonin work for jet lag?
It can help. But it depends where you’re going
了解更多信息
褪黑素能缓解时差反应吗？
有帮助。但这取决于你要去哪里
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DROP INTO any pharmacy in America and you will find jars of melatonin promising to relieve you of dreaded jet lag.
当你走进美国任何一家药店时，就会看到一瓶瓶褪黑素，都承诺可以缓解你难受的时差反应。
There are tablets, pinkgummies, potent-looking capsules—whatever appeals. But all you want to know is: does it work?
有药片、粉色软糖、看起来药效强劲的胶囊——任你挑选。但你只关心一个问题：这东西真的有效吗？
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Melatonin is known as the “darkness hormone”. When the sun goes down, it is released by the pineal gland in the brain.
褪黑素被称为“黑暗激素”。太阳下山后，大脑中的松果体会分泌褪黑素。
Production peaks in the middle of the night before slowly falling as the morning light returns.
褪黑素分泌量在午夜时分达到顶峰，之后随着晨光渐亮而缓缓下降。
Although driven by the biological clock, rather than darkness itself, the emergence and disappearance of light helps regulate the clock each day and keeps melatonin production synchronised to the day-night cycle.
虽说它是受生物钟驱动，并非单纯由黑暗主导，但是光线的明暗变化每天都有助于调节生物钟，褪黑素的分泌与昼夜更替的周期保持一致。
The night-time increase in melatonin puts people into a pleasant state that makes it easier for them to fall asleep.
夜晚褪黑素分泌量的增加会使人们进入一种舒适的状态，从而更容易入睡。
And when people are given melatonin during the day, they get sleepy then, too.
而且，要是人们在白天摄入褪黑素，同样也会感到困倦。
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Disrupted melatonin production can lead to sleep disorders.
褪黑激素分泌紊乱会导致睡眠障碍。
People who are blind, for example, do not have their biological clocks set by the changing light.
以盲人为例，他们的生物钟就不会受光线变化的调节。
Because the natural clock runs a little slower than the 24-hour cycle, their melatonin production can diverge from the external day-night cycle.
因为生物钟的运行速度比24小时周期略慢一点，所以他们褪黑素的分泌情况可能会和外界昼夜循环脱节。
Drifting melatonin peaks eventually make them sleep during the day, even against their best intentions.
褪黑素分泌峰值的偏移最终会使得他们违背自己的意愿，在白天睡着。
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Jet lag, similarly, can cause melatonin disruptions.
同样，时差反应也会导致褪黑素分泌紊乱。
One reason is that sleep is interrupted by the bright lights of the plane cabin, but the much more detrimental effect comes from arriving at a destination with a day-night cycle out of sync with your biological clock.
其中一个原因是飞机机舱内的强光会扰乱睡眠，不过更具破坏性的影响在于，当到达目的地时，当地的昼夜循环与你的生物钟不同步。
The clock, and the melatonin, can take days to catch up.
生物钟以及褪黑素的分泌情况可能需要几天时间才能调整过来。
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Managing jet lag with melatonin supplements, therefore, has become popular.
因此，通过服用褪黑素补充剂来缓解时差反应已经变得很普遍了。
But understanding whether or not they work is hard.Experiments that mess with people’s biological clocks in a controlled way, and which also recreate real-life scenarios, are not easy to do.
但要弄清楚它们是否真的有效却很困难。以可控的方式扰乱人们的生物钟，并且还能再现真实生活场景的实验并不容易开展。
Many studies, for instance, have kept people from sleep by exposing them to bright lights all night.
比如，有不少研究让人们整晚暴露在强光下，使他们无法入睡。
But that is not only a little cruel, it is not an ideal way to model sleep disruption.
但这样做不但有点残酷，也不是模拟睡眠干扰的理想做法。
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Instead, scientists have given melatonin to people who were travelling anyway, such as air cabin staff, soldiers and scientists travelling to conferences.
相反，科学家们给那些本来就要出行的人服用褪黑素，比如空乘人员、军人以及去参加会议的科学家们。
In those cases, the supplements do seem to work.
在这些情况下，补充剂似乎确实起了作用。
A landmark paper that pooled the results of five randomised controlled trials in 2002 found that people given melatonin rate their jet-lag experience as half as bad as those who are given a placebo, on a scale from zero to 100.
2002年，一篇具有里程碑意义的论文汇总了五项随机对照试验的结果，以0-100分的标准来评估，发现服用褪黑素的人群所经历的时差反应程度仅为安慰剂对照人群的一半。
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“Melatonin is quite effective if you have to speed up your clock,” says Derk-Jan Dijk, director of the Surrey Sleep Research Centre. “It’s not good at slowing down your clock.”
萨里睡眠研究中心主任德克 - 扬·迪克说：“如果你要加快生物钟的节奏，褪黑素是相当有效的，但它在减缓生物钟方面效果不佳。”
That means taking melatonin may be more useful after eastward flights, when you have to go to bed sooner than your body wants to, than after westward flights, when you have to stay up.
这意味着，在往东飞行后服用褪黑素可能更有益处，因为那时你得比身体原本想睡的时间更早入睡；而往西飞行后，你得晚睡熬夜，此时服用褪黑素的用处就没那么大了。
Fortunately for those with westward travel plans, there are other things you can do to help your biological clock adjust—gradually shifting the wake-sleep cycle in the days before the flight, for example, and getting natural sunlight and exercise during daytime hours at the destination, which helps adjust melatonin production.
幸运的是，对于那些有向西旅行计划的人来说，还有其他方法可以帮助你调整生物钟——例如，在飞行前几天逐渐调整作息周期，以及在抵达目的地后的白天时段多晒晒太阳、做做运动，这些都有助于调节褪黑素的分泌。
（恭喜读完，本篇英语词汇521左右）
原文出自：2025年1月11日《TE》Science & technology版块
精读笔记来源于：自由英语之路VIP群
本文翻译整理: Irene
本文编辑校对: Irene
仅供个人英语学习交流使用。
【重点句子】（3个）
Production peaks in the middle of the night before slowly falling as the morning light returns.
褪黑素分泌量在午夜时分达到顶峰，之后随着晨光渐亮而缓缓下降。
Disrupted melatonin production can lead to sleep disorders.
褪黑激素分泌紊乱会导致睡眠障碍。
That means taking melatonin may be more useful after eastward flights, when you have to go to bed sooner than your body wants to, than after westward flights, when you have to stay up.
这意味着，在往东飞行后服用褪黑素可能更有益处，因为那时你得比身体原本想睡的时间更早入睡；而往西飞行后，你得晚睡熬夜，此时服用褪黑素的用处就没那么大了。
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来源：健康点