Jet lag is a fairly common problem among people who undertake international travel, especially transmeridean travel. Jet lag is not seen if the journey does not involve transmeridean travel, even if journey is of several hours duration, e.g. traveling from London to Cape Town, a 7 hours journey.

What is jet lag?

The medical term of jet lag is “desynchronosis”. Jet lag is a condition due to alteration of normal cicardian rhythm of sleep by transmeridian air travel and there is disturbance in sleep, tiredness etc. Jet lag occurs due to transmeridian (east-west or west-east) air travel. More than 75 million people undertake transmeridian air travel annually and many of them experience jet lag.

Blood and blood products are collected as whole blood from donors in various anticoagulants. The blood and blood products which are used for transfusion are whole blood, packed red blood cells (PRBCs), platelet concentrates, fresh frozen plasma (FFP), cryoprecipitate, and plasma derivatives. Plasma derivatives are also used for transfusion such as albumin, intravenous immunoglobulin, anti-thrombin, and coagulation factor concentrates. Plasma derivatives are generally collected from several donors and pooled together and infectious organisms are removed by treating.

Separation of blood components from whole blood:

Blood is collected as whole blood of 450 ml (one unit of blood) in various anticoagulants. The whole blood is then processed to produce blood various blood components mentioned above. Most commonly blood is transfused as whole blood. To get blood components, whole blood is first separated by slow centrifugation into PRBCs and platelet rich/concentrated plasma.