Int J Biometeorol (1992) 36:136-140

meteorology

Correlation analysis between some blood properties and atmospheric environmental parameters Ina Bruns and H. Lieth AG Systemforschung Universitfit Osnabriick, PO Box 4469, W-4500 Osnabrfick, Federal Republic of Germany Received February 20; revised May 8; accepted May 14, 1992

Abstract. S.W. Tromp made investigations of a weather effect on erythrocyte sedimentation rates (ESR) of human blood by routine checks of the blood of donor groups in Leiden from 1955 to 1985. A higher ESR was found for the summer season and lower ESR for winter and low values occurred soon after a strong cooling spell. In this report, we have continued his work using data for the years 1971-1985 from Leiden (The Netherlands). An influence of the weather on ESR was also found, but this seems to be more complicated than Tromp supposed. Some new aspects are described and elaborated, e.g. ESR already increases before warming is noticed at the ground layer. This is possibly caused by changes in the upper atmosphere, a suggestion that requires further studies. For periods of low ESR, there was a greater number o f occlusion fronts passing the Netherlands. The long-term fluctuations of ESR that were found were correlated with sun spot relative numbers only in a few periods. The results of our study justify further research for a variety of other locations around the world. Key words: Erythrocyte sedimentation rates - Blood Weather fronts - Weather - Sun spots

Introduction In the early 1950s S.W. Tromp started a project in the Netherlands to investigate the influence of climate and weather on different parameters of human blood. Data were gathered of erythrocyte sedimentation rate (ESR), haemoglobin content (Hb), diastolic blood pressure (BP), fibrinogen content and other parameters (Tromp 1970) of donor blood over many years in different countries of the world. Erythrocyte sedimentation rates were found to be especially suitable for providing information Correspondence to .' I. Bruns

about physico-chemical changes in the body. A considerable shift of ESR indicates physico-chemical changes due to infection, stress or environmental changes (Tromp 1967). Short-, medium- and long-term fluctuations of ESR were found (Tromp 1967), which prompted investigation of the influence of weather for a large group of blood donors in Leiden. This work has now been continued at the University of Osnabrtick in honour of Dr. S.W. Tromp, including new data accumulated up to 1985. The following report, however, re-evaluates mainly the results of the data from Leiden (The Netherlands), and enlarges the scope of the investigation. We were able to confirm some of the earlier results of Dr. Tromp, whereas some of his assumptions could be disproved after analysis of a longer timeseries. The present report follows the analytical approach of Dr. Tromp and concentrates mainly on the data of the erythrocyte sedimentation rates, which is a very sensitive parameter of human blood and previously known to be indicative of slight illness and indisposition. Jenker (1985) established that the ESR of people who are sensitive to weather changes are more often higher than the ESR of unsensitive people. In this paper we have correlated the ESR with weather parameters especially temperature, frontal properties and sun spot activities.

Materials and methods Blood sampling and treatment Data collection. For the S.W. Tromp blood-bank collection, blood

samples of adult male persons were analysed twice or three times a week between 1955 and 1985 using the Westergren method under standardized conditions at a blood-bank. Details were published previously by Tromp (1967, 1981). The number of blood donors varied between 700 and 1200 per month. In Leiden the data were collected from January 1955 to June 1985 (with the exception of 1956 for which there were no reports of blood samples). In the blood data-bank of Dr. Tromp, data of shorter periods from other countries are available but are not included in this study, The

137 Table 1. Classification of weather fronts

r,1 N

Designation

0

Characteristics

80

00

Cold

cold front

m

Cold-m.

cold front followed by rising temperature in the lower atmosphere

-O m

Warm

I

Warm-m.

warm front warm front followed by decreasing temperature in the lower atmosphere

Occlusion

occlusion front

w/c

warm front followed by a cold front (before occlusion, mainly caused by a deep pressure area on the atlantic)

data were handed over to the junior author of this paper following a previous discussion with Dr. de Koning after the S.W. Tromp memorial symposium at the International Biometeorological Society Congress in Vienna, 1990.

Data evaluation. For the evaluation, the erythrocyte sedimentation rates of tested persons were classified into different groups according to the following values (millimetres sedimentation per hour): 1, t - 2 m m / h ; 2, 3-4mm/h; 3, 5 6mm/h; 4, ~ S m m / h ; 5, 910 ram/h; and 6, 11-12 mm/h. For every class the relative frequencies were calculated for months, years and for extremely low or high periods for every donor day. For the years from 1955 to 1970, the relative frequencies calculated by Dr. Tromp were used; these relative frequencies are shown as percentages of tested people. The following analysis uses only the percentages of people with an ESR of 1-2 ram/h, which is normally the most common group ,in the Netherlands (Tromp 1967). The standard deviations and 95% confidence levels of the averages reported were accepted for this study as statistically significant.

6@

m

40

0

20 0 42 C 0 IZ

i

O1/SS

Weather data. Details of the passages of fronts were taken from the European weather maps of the Netherlands (De Bilt 1971-1974 and 1983). Also the weather data were taken from the daily weather report of these maps. The data concern the weather station in Rotterdam (The Netherlands). Classification of fronts. For our investigations we separated the weather fronts into different groups (Table 1). Sun spots. The sun spot relative numbers were taken from the Quarterly Bulletin on Solar Activity for 1955 1985. We used the sunspot relative numbers R which had been calculated from different observatories around the world,

Results

Short-term and seasonal fluctuation The strong fluctuation of mean monthly ESR values in Leiden continued over the entire period until 1985 substantiate Tromp's findings (1967, 1981 ; Fig. 1). There is a decrease of the ESR values during summer, but only August and January (and December) show a significant difference at the 5% level against each other. The same pattern was found by Tromp (1967) by evluation

01/71

r

0 I187'

01/79

Fig. 1. Monthly averages of percentages of tested people with erythrocyte sedimentation rates (ESR) of 1-2 mm/h in Leiden (The Netherlands) for the period from 1955 to June 1985 (except 1956). The number of donors varied between 700 and 1200 per month

~

5o

~2

45

~

d-O

I 30

as 20

Evironmental parameters

F

01/63

p

i i

J

F

M

A

i

M

J

J

i

i

A

S

O

N

D

Fig. 2. Averages of percentages of tested people with 1-2 mm/h ESR in Leiden (The Netherlands) for the period from 1955 to June 1985 (except 1956) for each calendar month. The number of donors per month varied between 700 and 1200

of the early data; he therefore proposed a dependence of the ESR on temperature. Tromp found that the donor days with high percentages of ESR 1-2 mm/h were preceded by periods of strong cooling and increasing wind speed. Low percentages were found either after or at days with rising temperatures (Tromp 1981). Comparing temperatures with ESR values of 1-2 ram/h, we also found a dependence of ESR on temperature. However, not only the preceding but also the following temperature shows some correlation with the blood donation. We examined 59 donor days with low ESR percentages to find out at what time the warming happened. Low values indicating percentages of tested people with ESR of 1-2 mm/h, are < 45% (1983), _

Correlation analysis between some blood properties and atmospheric environmental parameters.

S.W. Tromp made investigations of a weather effect on erythrocyte sedimentation rates (ESR) of human blood by routine checks of the blood of donor gro...
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