Chronobiology's progress. Part I, season's appreciations 2004-2005: time-, frequency-, phase-, variable-, individual-, age- and site-specific chronomics

Abstract

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%.· 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 ...

Geographically selective assortment of cycles in pandemics: meta-analysis of data collected by Chizhevsky

“…Here, we show the presence of several cycles that may correspond to the ~11-year (Horrebow–Schwabe), the ~22-year (Hale) and the ~35-year (BEL) cycles, among others. Such correspondence can only prompt a subtraction-addition approach [28, 29]. The use of special computer programs allows us to more accurately estimate the periods.…”

Chronomics, human time estimation, and aging

“…On the positive side, the recognition of cycles, including non-photic ones such as transyears, in time estimation that differ from the photic day and year opens new perspectives of how a mental function can be influenced by the solar wind’s cyclicities that may have entered the genome, as circadians clearly did (Touitou and Haus 1992; Halberg et al 2003b; Koukkari and Sothern 2006; Refinetti 2006). The importance of nonphotic cycles beyond those in the estimation of 1 minute is evident from those influencing sudden death (Halberg et al 2006), suicide (Gordon and Berk 2003; Berk et al 2006; Cornélissen and Halberg 2006; Shumilov et al 2008; Chernouss et al pers comm), terrorism (Cornélissen et al 2007; Grigoryev and Vladimirskii 2007; Halberg et al 2007; Wendt 2007), and psychophysiology more generally (Persinger 1987; Oraevskii et al 1998; Breus et al 2002; Palmer et al 2006). …”

“…Many of these spectral components are of non-photic origin, coexisting and competing with, and sometimes replacing the calendar-year component. These cycles constitute pertinent control information and are also of interest in their own right, since some of them are associated with suicide (Cornélissen and Halberg 2006) and sudden cardiac death (Halberg et al 2006). …”

Application of Bioinformatics in Chronobiology Research

“…As chronomics has been shown to be effective in diagnosing disease, its use to detect changes that are still reversible may allow for prevention of disease [22, 23]. …”