Posted by gary g (208.133.217.136) on August 11, 1999 at 01:09:36:
great to see that German site
has lots of links too - most are also German
now all I have to do is try to resurrect my college Deutsche from ...well, a LONG time ago
FYI:
last fall & winter I ran a little research survey through the CHMB, which I see as related to the whole hypothalamus/circadian rhythym/seasonal change theory
has to do with the variance in the day to day rate of change of day length, which increases as one ascends latitude, and varies with the seasons - there is a cumulatively multiple effect in spring and fall, the higher the latitude
I was after the general regional ancestral origins of CH patients relative to latitude (which determines the amount of seasonal light change - a major factor in several other maladies characteristic of high lat peoples)
there ARE problems statistically with this survey, if one starts pulling it apart - from inadvertant variables skewed by using a US based English language web site to gather the data - -BUT, it is still dramatic, and I believe has SOME correlation value:
Got just under a hundred responses that appeared to be bona fide CH patients:
1. The respondents lived all over the globe - no decisive pattern relative to latitude.
2. The respondents were born in many places - again no decisive pattern re: latitude.
3. The ANCESTRAL origins were VERY significant however:
(I asked for LONGTERM ancestry - not just last couple generations)
70-75% had BOTH parents from ancestral areas at or above the 45th parallel
ALL - yes ALL - had at least one parental heritage from above the 45th
and..ALL had a 2 parent heritage AVERAGE over 45 degrees
< You have to mix this with astronomy (NOT astrology)to see the significance, relative to circadian stuff >
I did this before Goadsby came public with the Hypothalamus information, which I find very exciting because if ALL his subjects had a similar abnormality, that also implies SOME kind of commonality in origin-which would be a terrific start in tracking the root down
could be environmental, could be genetic, could even be the product of some north country cultural behavior prenatal or infant care....hard to tell
I believe any such environment-of-origin connection, if it exists, will be found to be very subtle, and more in the line of a predisposition factor than a hard cause
lots of the high lat origins were England, Ireland, Scotland - - which could clearly make an argument for English language skewing automatically yielding high lat response BUT !!!!!! there were MANY respondents with NONenglish hi-lat roots ,eg: Germany, Scandinavia countries but - get this - NOBODY who fell into equally common USA nationality components, such as Greek or Italian, but from lower lats
also - so far the CH sites I have found are in the countries which were most represented in my survey -there's good stuff in Germany, the Netherlands, etc
if any of you have been checking on this general part of the CH puzzle, I would love to hear from you