Nuvigil for Jet Lag? Nonsense!

Here we go again.  Another drug company pulling out all the stops to reach into your pocket for your hard earned cash to get you to buy a $9 pill that you don't need.

Cephalon, a drug company in Pennsylvania, has come up with another "stay-awake" drug to add to your medicine cabinet. This new drug, called Nuvigil, is designed to help you fight the debilitating sleepiness that descends on you after about twenty-four hours in a new time zone.

Your Eyes are Wide Open, But Are You Really Wide Awake with Nuvigil?

Answer? No. In order to be fully awake and functioning at optimum levels in a new time zone, according to the late Charles F. Ehret, Ph.D., Senior Scientist at Argonne National Laboratory outside Chicago, your core body temperature would have to have returned to normal. That's the #1 test. And that's not going to happen by taking a pill each day while you are on your trip. You may be on your feet and walking around during daylight hours at your new destination thanks to the chemical effects of Nuvigil, but you are still suffering from serious mental and physical symptoms of jet lag that affect your entire body.

According to an article in today's New York Times, "Nuvigil would be approved [by the F.D.A] to treat only the sleepiness associated with jet lag disorder — not to shift the body's clock to a new time zone."

So why take a pill when you can follow Dr. Ehret's simple 3-step, all-natural method to stop jet lag before it begins?

"It's something that can help you overcome the symptoms, but not the cause of the problems," said Charmane I. Eastman, director of the biological rhythms research laboratory at Rush University Medical Center in Chicago, in same  New York Times' article.

I rest my case.

Let's Take Nuvigil and Suffer from "Headaches, Nausea, Palpitations and Anxiety"

Those symptoms are what the drug company, Cephalon, calls Nuvigil's  "contraindications." Frankly, I find those after effects a bit off-putting, don't you?

I rest my case.

Nuvigil!  Melatonin! Amphetamines! Completely Unnecessary to Combat Jet Lag Symptoms

Dr. Ehret's new version of his famous book, now titled The Cure for Jet Lag, actually addresses this situation in the Q&A section. According to Dr. Ehret, popping pills is not the way to go to beat jet lag. In fact, your body works overtime to rid itself of the chemicals in those pills. Thus, making recovery from jet lag even worse!

All you have to do to stop jet lag in its tracks is to choose from among Dr. Ehret's various 3-step programs for straight-through flights, zigzag flights and multi-destination flights and

1) Eat the right composition of  meals at the right time of day or night so you have high energy during the day and can fall asleep easily at night.

2) Drink a caffeinated beverage at a specific time of day — depending upon which direction you are flying and how many time zones you are passing through.

3) Get up and get out during daylight time, destination time.

4) Get to sleep at a reasonable hour in the evening, destination time.

How hard is that? How expensive is that?

I rest my case.

Note from coauthor Lynne W. Scanlon: Let's hope when the F.D.A. reviews the data for Nuvigil in March, the F.D.A. takes into account that people who might take Nuvigil are, in fact, taking an unnecessary drug.

Update: 12/31/2010: After more pushback from U.S. regulators, Frazer, Pa.-based drugmaker Cephalon is scrapping efforts to market the narcolepsy drug Nuvigil for the treatment of excessive sleepiness associated with jet lag.

Cephalon said on Monday that it had received a second "Complete Response Letter" from the Food and Drug Administration. Such letters, which are sent when regulators believe they don't have enough information to approve a drug, are seen as setbacks, and often fatal ones, for drug applications.