Season's appreciations.

To follow the tradition set by the late Franz Halberg, highlights of research performed over the last year from his Minnesota Center are summarized. They illustrate the broad international cooperation enjoyed by his center and the diversity of applications of the discipline he founded. The results briefly summarized herein in the form of an annotated bibliography are a testimony that his legacy continues to live on and constitutes a tribute to his memory.

Circadian periodicity of plasma lipid peroxides and other anti-oxidants as putative markers in gynecological malignancies.

BACKGROUND: The chronome (from chronos, time, and nomos, rule), or time structure, of lipid peroxidation and anti-oxidant defense mechanisms may relate to prevention and curative chronochemotherapeutic efficacy and management. PATIENTS AND METHODS: Newly diagnosed women with gynecological malignancies (N = 30), 30-60 years of age, and age-matched clinically healthy women (N = 35) provided blood samples every 6 hours for 24 hours under standardized conditions. Plasma malondialdehyde (MDA), superoxide dismutase (SOD), catalase (CAT), glutathione peroxidase (GPx) and glutathione reductase (GR) activities, and serum ascorbate, urate and high-density lipoprotein cholesterol (HDL-C) concentrations were determined. RESULTS: Each variable underwent circadian variation (p < or = 0.002). Patients differed from controls by their overall chronome-adjusted mean value (MESOR) and by the circadian dynamics in the spectral element of their chronome. CONCLUSION: Chronomes of putative anti- and pro-oxidants should be mapped to explore their putative chemotherapeutic role as markers in cancer chronoprevention and management of established disease.

Feedsidewards: intermodulation (strictly) among time structures, chronomes, in and around us, and cosmo-vasculo-neuroimmunity. About ten-yearly changes: what Galileo missed and Schwabe found.

The spectrum of biological rhythms is extended far beyond circadians, circannuals, and ultradians, such as 1.5-hourly melatonin and 8-hourly endothelin-1 (ET-1) rhythms by statistics of natality, growth, morbidity, and mortality, some covering decades or centuries on millions of individuals. These reveal infradian cycles to be aligned with half-weekly rhythms in ET-1, weekly and half-yearly ones in melatonin, and even longer--about 50-, about 20-, and about 10-year cycles found in birth statistics. About daily, weekly, yearly, and ten-yearly patterns are also found in mortality from myocardial infarctions; the 10-yearly ones are also in heart rate and its variability; in steroid excretion, an aspect of resistance, for example, to bacteria; and in the genetic changes of the bacteria themselves. Automatic physiological measurements cover years and, in one case, cover a decade; the latter reveal an about 10-year (circadecennial) cycle. ECGs, covering months beat-to-beat, reveal circaseptans, gaining prominence in response to magnetic storms or after coronary artery bypass grafting. A spectrum including cycles from fractions of 1 Hz to circasemicentennians is just one element in biological time structures, chronomes. Chaos, trends, and any unresolved variability are the second to fourth elements of chronomes. Intermodulations, feedsidewards, account for rhythmically and thus predictably recurring quantitive differences and even for opposite treatment effects of the same total dose(s) of (1) immunomodulators inhibiting or stimulating DNA labeling of bone in health or speeding up versus slowing down a malignant growth and thus shortening or lengthening survival time, or (2) raising or lowering blood pressure or heart rate in the vascular aspect of the body's defense. Latitude-dependent competing photic and nonphotic solar effects upon the pineal are gauged by alternating yearly (by daylight) and half-yearly (by night) signatures of circulating melatonin at middle latitudes and by half-yearly signatures at noon near the pole. These many (including novel near 10-yearly) changes, for example, in 17-ketosteroid excretion, heart rate, heart rate variability, and myocardial infarction in us and those galactic, solar, and geophysical ones around us have their own special signatures and contribute to a cosmo-vasculo-immunity and, if that fails, to a cosmo(immuno?) pathology.

Spin-offs from blood pressure and heart rate studies for health care and space research.

Evidence here cited underlies resolutions at international meetings to initiate a chronobiology project for health improvement. This project demonstrates expeditiously the feasibility and the health benefits of incorporating chronomedical considerations in the diagnosis, treatment, and prevention of one (or a few closely related) vascular (and oncological) diseases, that have high awareness and importance in the public perspective. Thereby, chronomedicine should become a mainstream basic and applied speciality leading to continual improvement in national/international health status. Reference data obtained for health care can also serve to give a better understanding of the relationship between the terrestrial biosphere and cosmoi near and far.