Decadal cycles in the humancardiovascular system

Seven of the eight authors of this report each performed physiologic selfsurveillance,some around the clock for decades. We here document the presence of longcycles (decadals, including circaundecennians) in the time structure of systolic (S) anddiastolic (D) blood pressure (BP) and heart rate (HR). Because of the non-stationarynature in time and space of these and other physiologic and environmental periodiccomponents that, like the wind, can appear and disappear in a given or other geographiclocation at one or another time, they have been called "Aeolian". The nonlinearestimation of the uncertainties of the periods (τs) of two or more variables beingcompared has been used to determine whether these components are congruent or not,depending on whether their CIs (95% confidence intervals) overlap or not. Among others,congruence has been found for components with τs clustering around 10 years in us andaround us. There is a selective assortment among individuals, variables and cyclecharacteristics (mean and circadian amplitude and acrophase). Apart from basic interest,like other non-photic solar signatures such as transyears with periods slightly longer thanone year or about 33-year Brückner-Egeson-Lockyer (BEL) cycles, about 10-year andlonger cycles present in 7 of 7 self-monitoring individuals are of interest in the diagnosis Some of the other VVAs, such as a circadian over swing, i.e., CHAT (Circadian Hyper-Amplitude-Tension), or an excessive pulse pressure, based on repeated 7-day around-theclockrecords, can represent a risk of severe cardiovascular events, greater than that of ahigh BP. The differential diagnosis of physiologic cycles, infradians (components with aτ longer than 28 hours) as well as circadians awaits the collection of reference values forthe infradian parameters of the cycles described herein. Just as in stroke-pronespontaneously hypertensive rats during the weeks after weaning CHAT precedes anelevation of the BP MESOR, a decadal over swing seems to precede the occurrence ofhigh BP in two of the subjects here examined. Only around-the-clock monitoring inhealth for the collection of reference values will allow on their basis the differentialdiagnosis of the onsets of a circadian versus a circadecadal over swing in BP and thespecification whether, and if so, when to initiate hypotensive non-drug or drug treatment.