Probing the link between inside and outside

(April 7, 1998 00:43 a.m. EDT http://www.nando.net) -- A housewife in Reno
claims that passing weather fronts make her crazy. A California librarian, far
from the nearest window, says she falls asleep every time it rains. A Michigan
man believes his terrible headaches are linked to winter weather. Is there a
link between your inside and your outside?

Despite almost a century of research, the subject remains a mystery. Yet many
beliefs have become deeply engrained in our cultural mythology:

Rain makes arthritics ache, especially in an El Nino year like this.

Murder rates peak during a full moon.

Suicides skyrocket over the Christmas holidays.

Depression rates are highest among those who endure winters above the Arctic
Circle.

"Sometimes we find that, yes, there are funny things going on. But the whole
subject is so polluted with 'old wives tales,' longtime beliefs that have
taken on lives of their own, that it makes it very hard to ferret out the
truth," said Dr. Dennis M. Driscoll of Texas A&M University, a climatologist
with the International Society of Biometeorology.

Most research contradicts the folk beliefs. An elevator ride up the 1,707 feet
to the top of the Sears Tower in Chicago causes greater air pressure change
than a passing rainstorm. Murder rates are highest in the steamy summer,
regardless of the phase of the moon. Suicides peak in the spring, not winter.

A major psychiatric study of 1,200 Finnish reindeer herders found midwinter to
be quite a cheery time, despite darkness and daily temperatures that averaged
a bone-chilling minus 22 degrees. In fact, bright and balmy summer days
triggered the greatest prevalence of depression and mental problems.

"All kinds of disorders, including depression, were rare in the darkest
season," Dr. Nayha Vaisanen and his team of Finnish scientists concluded in
the 1994 issue of the journal Acta Psychiatry Scandinavia.

The intuitive belief that weather can influence our health has been held
throughout human history.

In the fourth century B.C., the Greek physician Hippocrates reported physical
and psychological reactions to hot and cold winds.

In old France the mistral wind was once thought to so impair judgment that
people who murdered while it was blowing were spared the guillotine.

Ever since, scientists have searched for seasonal trends in human health and
mood.

In his definitive study of daily deaths in 10 U.S. cities between 1962 and
1965, Driscoll found that mortality rates jumped during episodes of extreme
heat, cold, and air pollution -- but also were influenced by more subtle
factors such as daily fluctuations in temperature, dew point and air pressure.

Since then, dozens of smaller studies have attempted to find correlations
between weather and human health. For instance:

Cancer deaths at UC-San Francisco Medical Center peak in January, with another
small jump at the end of August, according to a 1990 analysis of 30,000 deaths
since the end of World War II by Dr. Francine Halberg of UCSF, with support
from the state Department of Health Services.

Drug overdoses are a warm weather phenomenon, with women most likely to
succumb in late May and men in early August, according to a 1987 Chicago-based
analysis by Dr. Ralph Morris of the University of Illinois. Overdoses in both
men and women were most common on Fridays at 6:20 p.m.

Both the manic and depressive episodes of a mood ailment called bipolar
disorder are most common in the spring, according to dozens of studies.

A different type of depression, called seasonal affective disorder, peaks in
the winter, particularly in northern latitudes. Schizophrenia shows no
seasonal cycle in its clinical course.

Modern science finds little support for the ancient belief in moon-induced
lunacy. Because of the moon's distance from Earth, and the minuscule tidal
effect it could have on an individual, scientists have found no cause and
effect relationship.

Suicide, contrary to prevailing wisdom, is a springtime and not a winter
holiday phenomenon. In fact, December records fewer suicides than any other
month, according to national statistics.

British researchers found that women are more likely to try to kill themselves
on cloudy days that are warm and wet and windless. Men also pick warm rainy
weather, but seem to prefer wind. For both genders, suicide attempts were was
most common during spring thunderstorms, researchers reported in the 1994
British Journal of Psychiatry.

Belgian scientists studied violent suicides, specifically, and also found a
spring peak: May 15, to be precise. Unlike the British study, they found
clusterings of violent suicide on days of high temperature, low air pressure,
and low humidity -- such as during the Santa Ana in Los Angeles, the "sharav"
heat wave in Israel, and the "fohn" winds in Germany or Switzerland, they
reported in the 1994 journal Acta Psychiatry Scandanavia.

In California, short-term weather seems to have greater significance.

A Sacramento-based study found that suicides are not seasonal, per se, but may
be linked to constant clouds. After 10 days of little sun, the number of
Sacramento suicides was 70 percent above average, according to a study by Drs.
Glenn Tietjen and Daniel Kripke of UC-San Diego in the 1994 journal Psychiatry
Research.

Violent crime and riots increase as heat rises. But when things get too
steamy, violence levels off.

An eight-year study of murder and weather in Baltimore, published in the 1995
Journal of Quantitative Criminology, found that murder rates climbed during
long stretches of hot weather.

The British Journal of Criminology also found high temperatures to be linked
to not just murder, but assault, burglary, domestic violence, and rape.

San Franciscans are most likely to die of all causes in January, then
December, February and March, according to an analysis of 17,925 deaths
reported between 1994-95 to the San Francisco Health Department.

August was suicide season in San Francisco in 1995, with 25 deaths that month
compared to nine in January. Homicides, on the other hand, peaked in January.
Deaths due to mental disorders peaked in May and June. But drug overdoses and
motor vehicle accidents were randomly distributed.

These findings, while controversial, suggest that humans are not too far
removed from our animal roots.

We evolved in a solar and lunar environment that changes drastically but
predictably every 24hours, 30 days, and 365.25 days.

The daily and seasonal rhythms of biological activity, driven by an internal
clock buried deep in the brain, are detectable at all levels of life.

For instance, the ovary of an Indian catfish weighs an astounding 16 grams
during monsoon season; the rest of the year, it weighs merely 1 gram. This
pattern persists during years and years of darkness -- when the fish swims in
an aquarium, far from her river habitat.

These genetically transmitted rhythms are maintained through the generations
because they aid in survival, biologists say.

An organism has an advantage if it can anticipate a daily or seasonal change
in the environment, not just respond to it. Metabolically and reproductively,
it can prepare to shift gears.

Through evolution, these internal rhythms have become tightly synchronized
with external rhythms, creating circadian harmony.

But sudden shifts in weather -- whether by El Nino rains, heat waves, a
temperature plunge or fast-moving weather fronts -- can cause biological
cacophony, some speculate.

Also upsetting are conflicts between internal biology and external social
factors, such as when a lonely person sees lovers strolling hand-in-hand on a
spring day.

"Many of us live at very different latitudes than where our ancestors came
from, so our biology may not fit our circumstances. ... Our problems may be
failures in adaptation," said UC-San Diego's Kripke.

Documentation of human seasonality is tough: Any population large enough to
offer reliable statistics is, almost by definition, exposed to very different
types of weather. For now, the most vivid examples are anecdotal.

Biometeorologist Driscoll has listened to dozens of people who claim to be
influenced by weather. "It takes on the air of the occult. It's in the same
league as astrology," said Driscoll.

"You can't prove there is an effect -- but you can't prove there isn't. All I
can say is, if you think you're sick, you probably are. In the final analysis,
who am I to say yes or no?

"We've searched for years and years for some connection -- and we're still
looking," he said.

"It's hard to unravel the environmental from the personal. Humans are
extremely complicated organisms."

By Lisa M. Krieger, San Francisco Examiner
Copyright 1998 Nando.net
Copyright 1998 Scripps Howard

janet paterson
51-10 / sinemet-selegiline-prozac
almonte-ontario-canada / [log in to unmask]