Chronobiology and chronomics: detecting and applying the cycles of nature (original) (raw)
Related papers
Journal of Applied Biomedicine, 2006
New components of transdisciplinary spectra or known components in new variables in us, matching those around us, are being mapped. Their hardly trivial interactions associated with the good and bad around us-from religiosity to crime and war-are being rendered measurable, for the eventual development of countermeasures to the diseases of societies and nations. Internal cycles not only underlie life itself and underlie our evolving genetics at all levels of organization; they also constitute the essential control and reference information in all transdisciplinary science. In preparing for travel to Mars and other missions in space that may take more than a year, let us do what is immediately practicable. Transyears may have very small amplitudes yet are associated with sudden cardiac death in some terrestrial locations; if they should play a role in these electrical incidents of the heart, among others like myocardial infarction and stroke, they will jeopardize lengthy missions in extraterrestrial space, away from hospitals. The likelihood of stroke or cardiac death can be immediately reduced by chronobiologically assessing blood pressure and heart rate variability and by optimizing the efficacy of timed treatment rather than relying on an unacceptable and often inaccurate spotcheck and treating by convenience rather than pertinence. Needed are: detection of nocturnal abnormality when medication may no longer be effective (or is too effective) neither seen during office visits by day; detection of circadian hyperamplitude-tension (CHAT) associated with a risk of stroke and kidney disease greater than other risks Halberg et al.: Chronobiology's progress I 2 (including "hypertension" when all risks are assessed concomitantly); detection of CHAT as high risk among normotensives who may not need anti-hypertensive medication; individualized inferential statistical testing to determine whether a drug or non-drug intervention such as autogenic training (relaxation) is effective and for how long (detecting any initial and later success or failure), some of which conditions otherwise are not found without chronobiology; individualization of treatment timing, since the same dose of the same medication can further lower the subject's blood pressure average and circadian amplitude when the timing of daily administration is optimized, as ascertained by sequential testing and parameter tests. Thus, we save lives by monitoring and assessing, and if need be treating, vascular disease risk through chronobiologically interpreted 24-hour or preferably longer (24-hour/7-day) blood pressure and heart rate variability. Abnormalities in the variability of blood pressure and heart rate, impossible to find during a conventional office visit (the latter aiming at the fiction of a "true" blood pressure), can raise cardiovascular disease risk in the next six years from 4% to 100%. Keywords: chronobioethicsgliding spectrablood pressureheart ratetravel to Mars • Dedicated to Alejandro Zaffaroni, who came as a pleasant surprise with flowers and more. May a marker-guided preventive chronotherapy of elevations of the risks of diseases not only of individuals but also of societies and nations eventually evolve.
Chronobiology's progress. Part II, chronomics for an immediately applicable biomedicine
J. Appl. Biomed, 2006
Chronomic cardiovascular surveillance serves to recognise and treat any risk elevation as well as overt disease, and to ascertain whether treatment is effective and, if so, for how long treatment effects lasts, be it for lowering an increased risk and/or in surveilling the success or failure of treatment. A treatment-associated increase in circadian amplitude of blood pressure (BP) may induce iatrogenic overswinging, also dubbed CHAT (circadian hyper-amplitude-tension), in some patients, thereby increasing cardiovascular disease risk unknowingly to care provider and receiver.
Chronomics and chronobiology in health and disease
Indian journal of clinical biochemistry : IJCB, 2009
Chronobiology is a branch of science that objectively explores and quantifies mechanisms of biological time structure including important rhythmic manifestations of life right from molecular level of living being, from unicellular organism to complex organism such as human being. Genetics eventually leads to genomics, concurrently the study of biological variability i.e. chronobiology leads to chronomics.
Chronomics and “Glocal” (Combined Global and Local) Assessment of Human Life
Progress of Theoretical Physics Supplement, 2008
Most organisms, from cyanobacteria to mammals, are known to use circadian mechanisms to coordinate their activities with the natural 24-hour light/dark cycle and/or interacting socio-ecologic schedules. When the human clock gene was discovered in 1997, it was surprising to see that it was very similar in all earthly life. Recent findings suggest that organisms which evolved on Earth acquired many of the visible and invisible cycles of their habitat and/or of their cosmos. While circadian systems are well documented both time-macroscopically and timemicroscopically, the temporal organization of physiological function is much more extensive. Long-term physiological quasi-ambulatory monitoring of blood pressure and heart rate, among other variables, such as those of the ECG and other tools of the neuroendocrinologic armamentarium, have already yielded information, among others, on circaseptan (about 7-day), transyears and cisyears (with periods slightly longer or shorter than one year, respectively), and circadecennian (about 10-year) cycles; the nervous system displays rhythms, chaos and trends, mapped as chronomes. Chronomes are time structures consisting of multifrequency rhythms covering frequencies over 18 orders of magnitude, elements of chaos, trends in chaotic and rhythmic endpoints, and other, as-yet unresolved variability. These resolvable time structures, chronomes, in us have counterparts around us, also consisting of rhythms, trends and chaos, as is increasingly being recognized. In 2000, we began a community-based study, relying on 7-day/24-hour monitoring of blood pressure as a public service. Our goal was the prevention of stroke and myocardial infarction and of the decline in cognitive function of the elderly in a community. Chronomic detection of elevated illness-risks aim at the prevention of diseases of individuals, such as myocardial infarctions and strokes, and, equally important, chronomics resolves illness of societies, such as crime and war, all exhibiting some already mapped cycles, that are indispensable for the study of underlying mechanisms. A variety of cognitive, neurobehavioral and neuropsychological as well as cardiovascular functions will need to be investigated to more precisely map their chronomes in space and time, in order to understand chronoastrobiology, based on both the system times and time horizons yielded by chronomes assessed in communities worldwide. Thus, we critically introduce a preventive health care, while keeping the flow of data for the assessment of space weather and its consequences in the evolution thus far of terrestrial life.
Essays on chronomics spawned by transdisciplinary chronobiology. Witness in time: Earl Elmer Bakken
Neuro endocrinology letters, 2001
Technology allows the monitoring of ever denser and longer serial biological and physical environmental data. This in turn allows the recognition of time structures, chronomes, including, with an ever broader spectrum of rhythms, also deterministic and other chaos and trends. Chronomics 1 thus resolves the otherwise impenetrable "normal range" of physiological variation and leads to new, dynamic maps of normalcy and health in all fi elds of human endeavor, including, with health care, physics, chemistry, biology, and even sociology and economics. The authors plan to describe initiators of modern mapping of our make-up in time, with focus on mechanisms and applications. Earl Elmer Bakken, to start the planned series, is also to serve as a local time-witness (Zeit-Zeuge) of concerns about chronomics in Minnesota.
Journal of Applied Biomedicine, 2011
Originally a remembrance of an elderly physiologist, this paper illustrates the need for a standardized specification of certain experimental or survey conditions beyond those usually necessarily disclosed in conventional publications, namely calendar-dates, clock-times and geographic locations, to allow reference to helio-ionosphero-geomagnetics along with natural and artificial lighting and temperature. When possible, body times given by a marker rhythm also should be specified. A personalized chronobiologic cybercare can eventually include focus on infradians, beyond circadians. Benefits from longitudinal monitoring are: 1. Chronobiologically-interpreted blood pressure (BP) and heart rate (HR) monitoring enables the diagnosis and treatment of vascular variability anomalies (VVAs) or, if lasting in several 7-day records, disorders (VVDs), not yet screened for in practice, that increase cardiovascular disease risk independently of an elevated BP. 2. The optimal treatment time for the individual patient can be determined and potential harm avoided, since the same dose of the same medication for the same patient can help or harm depending only on when it is administered. 3. Benefit may be derived in cancer treatment timed according to marker rhythmometry. 4. The change from a spotcheck-based health care to one of internet-aided systematic self-surveillance by the automatic collection and analysis of time series stems from evidence that nonphotic and photic environmental influences affect biota, associations that may depend on geographic and temporal location. 5. Imaging in time includes formatting for time, globally and locally, for the mapping of a transdisciplinary spectrum of cycles involving "good" and "bad" strain in human physiology,versus sudden cardiac death, suicide and terrorism, all latter requiring rational countermeasures.
2009
Around-the-clock monitoring of blood pressure (BP) and heart rate (HR) can detect Vascular Variability Disorders. VVDs include high BP and/or pulse pressure, that is MESOR (midline-estimating statistic of rhythm) hypertension (MH) and excessive pulse pressure (EPP). For all newly diagnosed hypertensives, at least two 24-hour/7-day records are recommended for the prevention of stroke and other life-threatening diseases. Lifetime-long self-surveillance may be advocated, once the diagnosis of MH or other VVD is confirmed, to validate dosage and timing of treatment. Decades-long records of BP and HR reveal potential signatures of cycles found in solar wind speed, e.g. far-transyears and cis-halfyears (shorter than a standard half-year), of about 16 and 5 months length, respectively. Transyears (more than – ‘trans’ – a calendar year) replace the calendar year in categorising some events, in the incidence patterns of cardiac arrhythmia, sudden death and suicide. Data from satellites and other modern technologies allow us to apply the advice of Sir Norman Lockyer, the co-discoverer of helium and the founder of the journal Nature: “Surely in meteorology, as in astronomy [and we would add, “and as in personal and societal health care”], the thing to hunt down is a cycle[emphasis ours], and if that is not to be found in the temperate zone, then go to the frigid zones or to the torrid zone to look for it; and if found, then above all things, and in whatever manner, lay hold of it, study it, record it and see what it means” (Lockyer, 1874). Miroslav Mikulecky, emeritus professor of internal medicine and statistics at Comenius University, Bratislava, Slovakia, indeed found what he dubbed ‘Halberg’s transyear’ in Mindanao (Philippines) and Brazil as well as in Slovakia for variables ranging from birth rate to the incidence of epilepsy and stroke (see e.g. Kovac and Mikulecky, 2005). Sir Norman knew the importance of the cycles generated by our cosmos and like Professor Mikulecky, we followed his advice (Halberg et al, 2006). We argue that through nucleic acid, these cycles eventually become self-sustaining and self-reproducing organisms, including humans, with impacts at the level of society. For all longstanding environmental cycles in the electromagnetic spectrum, whether in the visible range (photics, such as the day and the seasons) or beyond (nonphotics), biospheric reciprocals in terms of similar period lengths, τ, have been found. Nonphotics relate to particle radiation from space weather, broadly galacto-helio-ionosphero-geomagnetics, gravity, UV flux and whatever else can be measured in time in our cosmos. There are more τs than those of about a fraction of a second encountered in the electroencephalogram or about 1 second in the electrocardiogram. There are cycles with τs of ~1 day, those of ~1, ~2 and ~4 weeks, and ~5 months, as well as ~6, ~12 and ~13 month (near-transyear), and ~16 to ~21 month (far-transyear) cycles. There are also ~11, ~22, ~33, ~50 and ~500 year and myriadennian (Rohde and Muller, 2005) recurring patterns.
Stroke and other vascular disease prevention by chronomics
2003
To reduce the need for rehabilitation, BIOCOS, coordinated from the Halberg Chronobiology Center in Minnesota, has been collecting international reference values, notably of blood pressure (BP) and heart rate (HR), specified as a function of time, gender and age, to identify abnormality within the physiological range, so that prophylactic intervention instituted in a timely fashion may reduce the incidence of adverse outcomes, while also serving basic transdisciplinary science. BIOCOS, a project aimed at studying BIOlogical systems in their COSmos, has obtained a great deal of expertise in the fields of blood pressure (BP) and heart rate (HR) monitoring and of marker rhythmometry for the purposes of screening, diagnosis, treatment, and prognosis.
Biomedicine & Pharmacotherapy, 2003
We propose to initiate the automatic self-assessment of wear and tear as "stress and strain" by the time structures of blood pressure (BP) and heart rate (HR), in order to arrive eventually at an individualized timely and timed routine of life and to early preventive intervention as soon as needed. The routine may involve physiological scheduling of physical and mental activities and meals, and if need be of non-drug or drug treatment for stress amplification, e.g., by exercise, and/or strain (not stress) relief by relaxation. In so doing, we recognize the circulation as a pillar and marker of preventive and active neuroimmunomodulation (NIM), suggesting that some concerns of a vasculo-and broader NIM can be quantified by transdisciplinary chronobiology using its cartography-chronomics-of time structures, i.e., chronomes, from chronos = time and nomos = rule. Thus, we are introducing the chronomics of BP, HR and of other variables in the historical context of pioneers who were indispensable to experimental medicine. We build upon their contributions, but we must point out when, in the past, by necessity rather than choice, the giants provided rationalizing truisms that are no substitute for systematic serial data collection and appropriate computer analysis. A time-unspecified spotcheck as a baseline is much better than no measurement, but very often it is not enough, and it is always insufficient when an estimate of variability constitutes the information needed. For dynamic cycles, there are only reference cycles as a routine, although when maps are available, single timed spotchecks can be invaluable. With reference to their historical context, here we rely only upon data which necessity, rather than philosophy, compels us to collect.