Influence of geographic conditions on body length of male newborns in Kyrgyzstan.

Newborn length has been reported by many researchers to be reduced at high altitudes. However, many of these studies lacked adequate control of the ethnic group which may be confounding the altitude differences. In addition, few studies have examined the sources of variation in birth weight at high altitudes that may be related to ethnic group adaptation to the stresses of this hypoxic environment. In our study, we tested the hypotheses that the effect of altitude differences in newborn length depends on ethnic variation. Samples of 3359 healthy male newborns from different areas in Kyrgyzstan between the years 2003 and 2011 were analyzed for altitude and ethnic variation on male newborn length. Our results indicate significant decrease in male newborn length as a latitude increase. It is concluded that ethnic group difference in pregnancy outcome reflects a better state of adaptation to high altitude in this healthy indigenous population and that long-term genetic selection may be the most plausible explanation for these ethnic differences.

The role of heat shock proteins in the pathogenesis of heart failure (Review).

The influence of heat shock proteins (HSPs) on protein quality control systems in cardiomyocytes is currently under investigation. The effect of HSPs on the regulated cell death of cardiomyocytes (CMCs) is of great importance, since they play a major role in the implementation of compensatory and adaptive mechanisms in the event of cardiac damage. HSPs mediate a number of mechanisms that activate the apoptotic cascade, playing both pro­ and anti­apoptotic roles depending on their location in the cell. Another type of cell death, autophagy, can in some cases lead to cell death, while in other situations it acts as a cell survival mechanism. The present review considered the characteristics of the expression of HSPs of different molecular weights in CMCs in myocardial damage caused by heart failure, as well as their role in the realization of certain types of regulated cell death.

Daytime Exposure to Blue Light Alters Cardiovascular Circadian Rhythms, Electrolyte Excretion and Melatonin Production.

Artificial light is characterized by certain features of its impact on the body in terms of its spectral distribution of power, duration of exposure and intensity. Short waves, perceived as blue light, are the strongest synchronizing agent for the circadian system. In the present work, we investigated the features of the circadian rhythms of blood pressure (BP), heart rate (HR), the excretion of electrolytes and the secretion of melatonin in normotensive (Wistar-Kyoto) and hypertensive (SHR) rats under the action of monochromatic blue light in the daytime period. It was found that the exposure of Wistar-Kyoto rats to monochromatic blue light was accompanied by a significant decrease in nighttime and 24 h systolic BP. The most remarkable changes are characteristic of the HR in SHR rats under monochromatic light. A significant decrease in HR in each time period was found, but the predominance of nighttime over daytime values remained in SHR animals. There was also a significant increase in the mesor of the HR in SHR rats. Additionally, the amplitude of diastolic BP and HR, as well as the range of oscillations in HR, were significantly increased compared with the standard light pattern. In contrast to SHR rats, the regulation of the circadian rhythms in Wistar-Kyoto rats was more flexible and presented more changes, which may be aimed at the adaptation of the body to environmental conditions. For Wistar-Kyoto rats, an increase in the level of excreted electrolytes was observed under the action of monochromatic light, but no similar changes were found in SHR rats. For Wistar-Kyoto rats, a significant decrease in the urine concentration of aMT6s in the daytime and nighttime periods is characteristic, which results in the loss of the circadian rhythm. In SHR rats, there was a significant decrease in the nighttime content of aMT6s in the urine, while the daytime concentration, on the contrary, increased. The obtained data demonstrate that prolonged exposure to monochromatic blue light in the daytime period affects the circadian structure of the rhythms of the cardiovascular system, the rhythm of electrolyte excretion and the production of epiphyseal melatonin in wild-type and hypertensive animals. In SHR rats, the rhythms of BP and HR exhibit a more rigid pattern.

Effects of circadian restricted feeding on parameters of metabolic syndrome among healthy subjects.

Experimental studies indicate that energy homeostasis to the circadian clock at the behavioral, physiological, and molecular levels, emphasize that timing of food intake may play a significant role in the development of obesity and central obesity. Therefore, resetting the circadian clock by circadian energy restriction via food intake in the morning or evening, may be used as a new approach for prevention of obesity, metabolic syndrome and related diseases. After ethical clearance and written, informed consent, free living subjects were included if they volunteered to take most of the total daily meals (approximately 2000 Kcal./day) in the evening (4 weeks) or morning (4 weeks). Of 22 adults, half were randomly selected by computer generated numbers to eat in the morning and the other half in the evening, after 8.00 PM. The eating pattern was changed after 4 weeks of intervention and a 4-week washout period, those who ate in the morning were advised to eat in the evening and vice versa. Validated questionnaires were used to assess food intakes, physical activity, and intake of alcohol and tobacco. Physical examination included measurement of body weight, height, and blood pressure (BP) by sphygmomanometer. Data were regularly recorded blindly, in all subjects at start of study and during follow-up. Blood samples were collected after an overnight fast for analysis of blood glucose and Hb1c. Feeding in the evening was associated with significant increase in body weight by 0.80 kg (P < .001), body mass index (BMI) by 0.30 kg/m2 (P < .001) and waist circumference by 1.13 cm (P < .05). Feeding the same amount of energy in the morning was not associated with any significant change in weight, BMI or waist circumference (P > .500). Lesser increases in all three variables were associated with AM versus PM feeding (P < .05). Systolic BP slightly increased on PM and decreased on AM feeding, with a difference between the two responses of 1.55 mmHg (P < .05). Fasting blood glucose was lower on AM than on PM feeding (74.86 vs. 77.95 mg/dl, paired t = 4.220, P < .001). Hb1C increased on PM feeding by 0.28 (from 4.45 to 4.73; t = 9.176, P < .001), but decreased on AM feeding by 0.077 (from 4.53 to 4.45; t = -6.859, P < .001). The difference in Hb1C response between AM and PM feeding is also statistically significant (t = -11.599, P < .001). Eating in the evening can predispose to obesity, central obesity and increases in fasting blood glucose and Hb1c that are indicators of the metabolic syndrome. By contrast, eating in the morning can decrease Hb1c and systolic BP, indicating that it may be protective against the metabolic syndrome.

Magnetic storm effect on the circulation of rabbits.

The ultrastructure of cardiomyocytes of rabbits was found to be drastically altered at a time coinciding with strong magnetic storms by comparison with that usually observed during quiet geomagnetic conditions. The circadian characteristics of systolic and mean pressure in the left and right ventricles of Chinchilla rabbits were assessed and compared between quiet and stormy magnetic conditions. Experiments repeated during four consecutive seasons at the times of equinoxes and solstices in the absence of magnetic storms were also examined for any circannual and/or transannual variation. The results have been interpreted in the broader context of non-photic influences on the circulation, fully supporting the presence of non-photic effects. The recording of magnetic activity in the laboratory, and until this is possible, the consultation of the physicists' routine recording of geomagnetic indices should become a sine qua non, since, as shown herein, magnetic storms can override the effect of the usually dominant synchronizer, the alternation of light and darkness.

Chronoastrobiology: proposal, nine conferences, heliogeomagnetics, transyears, near-weeks, near-decades, phylogenetic and ontogenetic memories.

"Chronoastrobiology: are we at the threshold of a new science? Is there a critical mass for scientific research?" A simple photograph of the planet earth from outer space was one of the greatest contributions of space exploration. It drove home in a glance that human survival depends upon the wobbly dynamics in a thin and fragile skin of water and gas that covers a small globe in a mostly cold and vast universe. This image raised the stakes in understanding our place in that universe, in finding out where we came from and in choosing a path for survival. Since that landmark photograph was taken, new astronomical and biomedical information and growing computer power have been revealing that organic life, including human life, is and has been connected to invisible (non-photic) forces, in that vast universe in some surprising ways. Every cell in our body is bathed in an external and internal environment of fluctuating magnetism. It is becoming clear that the fluctuations are primarily caused by an intimate and systematic interplay between forces within the bowels of the earth--which the great physician and father of magnetism William Gilbert called a 'small magnet'--and the thermonuclear turbulence within the sun, an enormously larger magnet than the earth, acting upon organisms, which are minuscule magnets. It follows and is also increasingly apparent that these external fluctuations in magnetic fields can affect virtually every circuit in the biological machinery to a lesser or greater degree, depending both on the particular biological system and on the particular properties of the magnetic fluctuations. The development of high technology instruments and computer power, already used to visualize the human heart and brain, is furthermore making it obvious that there is a statistically predictable time structure to the fluctuations in the sun's thermonuclear turbulence and thus to its magnetic interactions with the earth's own magnetic field and hence a time structure to the magnetic fields in organisms. Likewise in humans, and in at least those other species that have been studied, computer power has enabled us to discover statistically defined endogenous physiological rhythms and further direct effects that are associated with these invisible geo- and heliomagnetic cycles. Thus, what once might have been dismissed as noise in both magnetic and physiological data does in fact have structure. And we may be at the threshold of understanding the biological and medical meaning and consequences of these patterns and biological-astronomical linkages as well. Structures in time are called chronomes; their mapping in us and around us is called chronomics. The scientific study of chronomes is chronobiology. And the scientific study of all aspects of biology related to the cosmos has been called astrobiology. Hence we may dub the new study of time structures in biology with regard to influences from cosmo- helio- and geomagnetic rhythms chronoastrobiology. It has, of course, been understood for centuries that the movements of the earth in relation to the sun produce seasonal and daily cycles in light energy and that these have had profound effects on the evolution of life. It is now emerging that rhythmic events generated from within the sun itself, as a large turbulent magnet in its own right, can have direct effects upon life on earth. Moreover, comparative studies of diverse species indicate that there have also been ancient evolutionary effects shaping the endogenous chronomic physiological characteristics of life. Thus the rhythms of the sun can affect us not only directly, but also indirectly through the chronomic patterns that solar magnetic rhythms have created within our physiology in the remote past. For example, we can document the direct exogenous effects of given specific solar wind events upon human blood pressure and heart rate. We also have evidence of endogenous internal rhythms in blood pressure and heart rate that are close to but not identical to the period length of rhythms in the solar wind. These were installed genetically by natural selection at some time in the distant geological past. This interpretive model of the data makes the prediction that the internal and external influences on heart rate and blood pressure can reinforce or cancel each other out at different times. A study of extensive clinical and physiological data shows that the interpretive model is robust and that internal and external effects are indeed augmentative at a statistically significant level. Chronoastrobiological studies are contributing to basic science--that is, our understanding is being expanded as we recognize heretofore unelaborated linkages of life to the complex dynamics of the sun, and even to heretofore unelaborated evolutionary phenomena. Once, one might have thought of solar storms as mere transient 'perturbations' to biology, with no lasting importance. Now we are on the brink of understanding that solar turbulences have played a role in shaping endogenous physiological chronomes. There is even documentation for correlations between solar magnetic cycles and psychological swings, eras of belligerence and of certain expressions of sacred or religious feelings. Chronoastrobiology can surely contribute to practical applications as well as to basic science. It can help develop refinements in our ability to live safely in outer space, where for example at the distance of the moon the magnetic influences of the sun will have an effect upon humans unshielded by the earth's native magnetic field. We should be better able to understand these influences as physiological and mechanical challenges, and to improve our estimations of the effects of exposure. Chronoastrobiology moreover holds great promise in broadening our perspectives and powers in medicine and public health right here upon the surface of the earth. Even the potential relevance of chronoastrobiology for practical environmental and agricultural challenges cannot be ruled out at this early stage in our understanding of the apparently ubiquitous effects of magnetism and hence perhaps of solar magnetism on life. The evidence already mentioned that fluctuations in solar magnetism can influence gross clinical phenomena such as rates of strokes and heart attacks, and related cardiovascular variables such as blood pressure and heart rate, should illustrate the point that the door is open to broad studies of clinical implications. The medical value of better understanding magnetic fluctuations as sources of variability in human physiology falls into several categories: 1) The design of improved analytical and experimental controls in medical research. Epidemiological analyses require that the multiple sources causing variability in physiological functions and clinical phenomena be identified and understood as thoroughly as possible, in order to estimate systematic alterations of any one variable. 2) Preventive medicine and the individual patients'care. There are no flat 'baselines', only reference chronomes. Magnetic fluctuations can be shown statistically to exacerbate health problems in some cases. The next step should be to determine whether vulnerable individuals can be identified by individual monitoring. Such vulnerable patients may then discover that they have the option to avoid circumstances associated with anxiety during solar storms, and/or pay special attention to their medication or other treatments. Prehabilitation by self-help can hopefully complement and eventually replace much costly rehabilitation. 3) Basic understanding of human physiological mechanisms. The chronomic organization of physiology implies a much more subtle dynamic integration of functions than is generally appreciated. All three categories of medical value in turn pertain to the challenges for space science of exploring and colonizing the solar system. The earth's native magnetic field acts like an enormous umbrella that offers considerable protection on the surface from harsh solar winds of charged particles and magnetic fluxes. The umbrella becomes weaker with distance from the earth and will offer little protection for humans, other animals, and plants in colonies on the surface of the moon or beyond. Thus it is important before more distant colonization is planned or implemented to better understand those magnetism-related biological- solar interactions that now can be studied conveniently on earth. (ABSTRACT TRUNCATED)

Chronobiological analysis of blood pressure in a patient with atrial fibrillation at the development of heart failure and its therapeutic and surgical treatment.

Dynamics of blood pressure (BP) and heart rate (HR) was traced by automatic monitoring every 30 min uninterruptedly along several months in a patient suffering from combined atrial fibrillation and heart failure during the development of disease and its therapeutic and surgical treatment (pacemaker implanting and atrioventricular ablation). Analyses of spectral components as well as signal's shape revealed instabilities in circadian and semicircadian parameters. A new approach for signal's form description without using cosine approximation is suggested. The meaning that referring a patient as dipper, night peaker, or nondipper might be useful at choosing tactics of his treatment is impugned, because all these "types" can transform themselves in the same person in few days. Optimization timing of treatment provides better results if not the "types" of daily profile would be taken to account but the real form of the BP-signal and timing its first and second derivatives.