Geographic and extraterrestrial aspects of morbidity and/or mortality patterns from myocardial infarction and stroke

Two authors (M.K. and M.M.) provided insight into a manuscript submitted by them elsewhere for publication and kindly offered for meta-analysis data on the monthly incidence from January 1989 up to December 2004, of 6094 cerebral infarctions, 414 intracerebral and 277 subarachnoid hemorrhages, cases admitted at the Neurological Clinic in Nové Zamky, Slovakia. Spectral components with a period exceeding (beyond = trans) the length of the calendar year--transyears--reported originally by M.K. and M.M. are here also documented linearly on original data without and after detrending by the fit of first- or second-order polynomials. For intracerebral and subarachnoidal hemorrhage, the zero-amplitude (no-rhythm) assumption is rejected (P < 0.05, not corrected for multiple testing) for the transyear but not for a precise 1.0-year trial period. As reported earlier by M.K. and M.M., the transyear's amplitude is larger than the calendar year's amplitude for all three series of stroke incidence in Slovakia. The putative importance of the new findings stems from earlier and new analyses revealing other spectral components that are presumed signatures of magnetoperiodisms, e.g. about 50- and 7-year components in about five decades of diagnostically unqualified, pooled data on stroke in Minnesota. There is, however, the danger of relatively small numbers providing artifacts for loosely defined transyears. The original cosinor approach by M.K. and M.M., testing anticipated periods, had its strength. The observation of a quindecadal component in mortality from strokes in Minnesota supports the presence of signatures of effects from extraterrestrial space in acute human pathology such as strokes, myocardial infarctions and sudden cardiac death. Magnetoperiodic mechanisms remain to be investigated further as added strokes accumulate in Nové Zamky and greater Slovakia as well as for sudden cardiac death where transyears have been documented in the Czech Republic, in Arkansas and particularly in Minnesota, but not elsewhere (as yet?). This study is also a plea for worldwide access to morbidity, mortality and natality data that constitute a largely unexploited treasure, brought to the fore mainly for relatively short-term comparisons of the effect of interventions against the fiction of imaginary baselines.