The effect of cosmic ray intensity variations and geomagnetic disturbances on the physiological state of aviators

Abstract

Over the last few years various researches have reached the conclusion that cosmic ray variations and geomagnetic disturbances are related to the condition of the human physiological state. In this study medical data regarding 4018 Slovak aviators were analyzed in relation to daily variations of cosmic ray and geomagnetic activity. Specifically daily data concerning mean values of heart rate which were registered during the medical examinations of the Slovak aviators, were related to daily variations of cosmic ray intensity, as measured by the Neutron Monitor Station on Lomnicky Stit (<a href="http://neutronmonitor.ta3.sk/realtime.php3" target="_blank">http://neutronmonitor.ta3.sk/realtime.php3</a>) and the high resolution neutron monitor database (<a href="http://www.nmdb.eu" target="_blank">http://www.nmdb.eu</a>) and daily variations of Dst and Ap geomagnetic indices. All subjects were men in good health of age 18–60 yrs. This particular study refers to the time period from 1 January 1994 till 31 December 2002. Statistical methods were applied to establish a statistical significance of the effect of geomagnetic activity levels and cosmic ray intensity variations on the aforementioned physiological parameters for the whole group. The Pearson r-coefficients were calculated and the Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) method was applied to establish the statistical significance levels (p-values) of the effect of geomagnetic activity and cosmic ray intensity variations on heart rate up to three days before and three days after the respective events. Results show that there is an underlying effect of geomagnetic activity and cosmic ray intensity variations on the cardiovascular functionality

Cosmic radiation influence on the physiological state of aviators

“…More specifically, in Dimitrova (2008), a group of 86 volunteers was examined during periods of high solar and geomagnetic activity. It was shown that CRI decrease was associated with mean arterial systolic and diastolic blood pressure, pulse pressure, and subjective psycho-physiological complaints increase, while in Papailiou et al (2011a), CRI decrease is associated with heart rate decrease. Stoupel et al (2005) have shown that the monthly number of acute myocardial infractions is significantly related to cosmic ray (positive correlation) and solar and geomagnetic (negative correlation) activity.…”

“…A large amount of these investigations focuses mainly on the influence cosmic ray activity may have on the human physiological state (Stoupel et al 2007a, b;Mavromichalaki et al 2009;Papailiou et al 2009Papailiou et al , 2011a since cosmic ray activity could be considered as one of the regulating external/environmental factors in human homeostasis (Stoupel et al 2006).…”

“…The most important results are not only those concerning cardiovascular diseases and diseases of the nervous system, especially strokes, myocardial infarctions, and traffic accidents (Villoresi et al 1994a, b;Ptitsyna et al 1996Ptitsyna et al , 1998Dorman et al 1999) but also those concerning human physiological parameters variations such as heart rate and arterial systolic and diastolic pressure (Dimitrova 2008;Dimitrova et al 2009;Papailiou et al 2011a). More specifically, in Dimitrova (2008), a group of 86 volunteers was examined during periods of high solar and geomagnetic activity.…”

Space weather phenomena on heart rate: a study in the Greek region

“…The total CRI values and the GMA data were divided into levels 0, 1, 2, 3, and 4 in accordance with the observed CRI variations and geomagnetic disturbances (Galata et al 2017 ). For this study, a geomagnetic storm corresponds to Dst index less than − 100nT (Papailiou et al 2011 ). Finally, for every level of activity, the relative mean HR values were estimated as well.…”

“…Over the last years, the Cosmic Ray Group of the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens (NKUA) has intensively worked on how the human physiological state may possibly be effected by space weather phenomena and has published a significant number of scientific papers presenting the results of these investigations (Papailiou et al 2009 , 2011 , 2012 ; Mavromichalaki et al 2012 , 2017 , 2021 ; Giannaropoulou et al 2014 ; Galata et al 2017 ). In this work, an attempt to present a synopsis of the studies on heart rate (HR) variations that have been conducted by the NKUA in Greece so far is being made.…”