Posted by gary g (208.133.217.192) on June 23, 1999 at 22:11:38:
Hi CHeads
Some of you may remember me requesting input to a very focussed inquiry on 1 small part of this through the winter & spring - guess I've got enough feedback now to let you know what I found
Good news: I discovered a REAL pattern that relates closely to the theory of hypothalmus/light cycles triggers that is showing up in a lot of the serious medical research & writing about CH
Bad news: Turns out there is an automatic bias in doing survey research via the internet on anything involving national origin, etc because the 'net is so self-sorting on language, and language is of course of geographic origin - as you will see, using an English language vehicle as the sole collector of data may be a problem, but nevertheless-
I was quite careful to try to be sure that responses were only used from definite, long-diagnosed CH patients - - there is obviously a lot of confusion in the early years of any individual's case, and I needed to remove distortion from using info from folks who possibly didn't really have CH
SO - for what it's worth, here's what I discovered:
The focus is on LATITUDE - which is what determines environmental light cycles through the year -
for this project ethnic, national or racial background is irrelevant except as it indicates the likely latitude of one's hereditary origins -
CURRENT RESIDENCE:
Respondents were so well scattered, that current residence region seems to have no bearing on CH
incidence
BIRTH/CHILDHOOD RESIDENCE:
The pattern begins to form, but is weak: most were born/raised at latitudes exceeding 45 degrees, but there were several exceptions
FATHER'S ANCESTRAL REGIONS:
WOW WOW - A bit over 85% from above 45 degrees
MOTHER'S ANCESTRAL REGIONS:
WOW - OVER 90% of the respondants showed ancestry on Mother's Side to be from greater than 45 degrees
COMBINED ANCESTRY:
UNBELIEVABLE - 98% of the respondants had at least 1 parent from above 45 degrees, and ALL had a parental average over 45 degrees
Which seems to suggest -
This may be tied to an ancestrally-derived design defect in us which reacts violently/inappropriately to the environmental light cycles;
This isn't necessarily a CAUSE, but may well be a definite factor of predisposition to Ch, whether directly, or in producing vulnerability to some other triggering agent(s)
As you remember from 9th grade physical science class- the higher the latitude, the greater the variation in daylight length through the year, and the more radical the RATE of daily change in that daylight length in the spring and fall
Remember too - high latitude origins/residence has LONG been proven to be a big factor in clinical depression, suicide & alcoholism rates, and there's more to it than just getting bummed by the cold weather and long winters
So -
take this tiny bit of info & do with it as you wish
BTW - this CAN be connected to the extremely successful use of oxygen, because O2 affects seratonin/melatonin response of the hypothalmus, which has been implicated in CH biochemistry AND which is the part of the brain which processes environmental stimuli - including light & our response to it
hell - if light processed through the hypothalmus makes birds migrate like clockwork (which it does),it certainly can set off these attacks somehow !