Objectives: to examine the relationship between beliefs in ways of telling the future (astrology, graphology, palmistry, etc) and beliefs in complementary and alternative medicine (CAM). Design: participants completed a short questionnaire that requested that they rate the efficacy of 8 CAM therapies along with 12 other ways of predicting the future ranging from the well known and established (astrology) to the less well known (tasseography, oneiromancy). Short descriptions of each were provided. They also answered four attitude statements on science as applied to medicine. Subjects: two hundred three (130 female, 73 male) adult Britains obtained from a university subject panel served as unpaid volunteer subjects. Results: CAM therapieswere judged as modestly effective and most of the other “-ologies” ineffective. Further analysis confirmed two clear factors with the different methods loading on two different factors. Regressions showed females who were less concerned with scientific evaluations but more concerned with treatmment believed more in the efficacy of the “future-ologies”.n Also, females who had heard of fewer “future-ologies” but more CAM practices were morelikley to believe in the efficacy of CAM therapies. Conclusion: belief in CAM is unrelated to belief in “future-ologies”. Interest in the scientific evaluation of treatment is the best predictor of beliefs about efficacy.

Collectively the daily, seasonal, lunar andtidal geophysical cycles regulate much of the temporal biology of life on Earth. The increasing isolate of human socities from these geophysical cycles, as aresult ofimproved living conditions, high-quality nutrition and 24/7 working practices, have led many to believe that human biology functions independently of them. Yet recent studies have highlighted the dominant role that our circadian clock plays in the organisation of 24 hour patterns of behaviour and physiology. Preferred wake and sleep times are to a large extent drive by an endogenous temporal programme that uses sunlight as an entraining cue. The alarm clock can drive human activity rhythms but has little direct effect on our endogenous 24 hour pysiology. In many situations, our biology and our society appear to be in serious opposiion, and the damaging consequences to our health under these circumstances are increasinly recognised. The seasons dominate the lives of non-equatorial species, and until recently, they also had a marked influence on much of human biology. Despite human isolation from seasonal changes in temperature, food and photoperiod in the industrialised nations, the seasons still appear to have a small, but significant, impact upon when individuals are born and man asepcts of health. The seasonal changes that modulate our biology, and how these factorsmight interact with the social and metabolic status of the individual to drive seasonaleffects, arestill poorly understood. Lunar cycles had, and continue to have, an influecne upon human culture, though despite a persistent belief that ourmental health and other behaviours are modulated by the phase of the moon, there is no solid evidence that human biology is in any way regulated by the lunar cycle.

Objective: to determine whether a relationship between urinary retention and temporal rhythms exists. Design: retrospecive analysis of patients presenting over three years. Setting: urology departments in two hospitals. Patients: 815 patients presenting as emergency admissions with urinary retention and requiring immediate decompression of the bladder. Main outcome measures: calendar date of each admissionto determine circadian, monthly, and seasonal periodicity. Results: no association was found between urinary retention and circadian,monthly, or seasonal fhythms. A significantly higher (p<0.001) incidence of urinary retention was observed during the new moon in compariosn with other phases of the lunar cycle. Conclusion: urinary retention is periodic in nature. This should be considered when the workload of a specialist urological department is organised.

Acute poisoning is unusual among diseases in having an extremely short incubation period: patients or their relatives seek medical advice usually on the samae day that the poison has been taken, and the time of poisoning can be established easily. In India, the day of full moon, when the earth lies between the sun and the moon, is called “purnima”. The relative position of the sun and moon on this day are such that their gravitational forces on the earth act almost in a straight line, causing higher tides. Water conbstitutes 50-60% of the body weight of humans. Possibly, as with sea water, body water might also generate some sort of tidal wave that increases on purnima days. These “human tidal waves” might cause physical, physiological, or biochemical changes in the body. The brain might also be affected by the process. As well as other factors that influence an individual to take poison, this phenomenon might affect the incidence of poisoning on purnima days. We undertook a study to investigate this.

In this 3rd part a working model is presented which allows the Gauquelin data to be contextualised within soli-lunar influence and some preliminary tests are carried out. The advantages of doing this are that existing scientific knowledge can be brought to bear, and that they can be seen in relation to the sun, moon and earth in classical astrological thinking. A combination of three factors is shown to enhance the strength of the Gauquelin Effect, and is thus implicated in its generation.

An experiment in astrology conducted by Shawn Carlson and published in Nature in 1985 is reviewed using the original materials given to the astrologers, interviewing four surviving astrologers that were found, and comparing the claims of the experimenter made before, during, and after the experiment. Numerous errors were found with experimental hypothesis, design, use of psychological tests by non-psychologists, data collection, data reporting, significant bias, misuse of statistical procedures, unsubstantiated claims, and presentation of a predetermined conclusion disconnected from results.

The annual total of births in Hong Kong SAR fell substantially in the past 20 years: hence the total fertility rate (TFR) followed the downward trend and dropped to a low of 0.9 below replacement level in 2000. Despite the long-term downward trend, short-run increases in the annual total of births and the TFR were exhibited. Such temporary fertility increases are identified in the Dragon Years of 1988 and 2000. The phenomenon of fertility changes associated with zodiacal animal years is examined in this paper with a view to gaining some insight into whether Chinese cultural preferences and folklore beliefs might have influenced prospective parents’ reproductive behaviour. The paper explains the underlying philosophy of the Chinese astrological tradition and discusses how zodiacal preferences affect fertility between 1976 and 2000. The paper also explores why zodiacal influences on Chinese fertility before 1976 did not exist. It is unquestionable that the Dragon Year preference exerts an influence on fertility of modern Chinese populations through zodiacal birth-timing motivations. Birth rate rise in the Dragon Year is due to changes in timing of births that will have little effect on cumulative fertility.

Since antiquity, people in several East Asian countries, such as China, Japan, and South Korea, have believed that a person is destined to possess specific characteristics according to the sign of the zodiac under which he or she was born. South Koreans, in particular, have traditionally considered that the year of the Horse bears inauspicious implications for the birth of daughters. Using monthly longitudinal data at the region level in South Korea between 1970 and 2003, we found that, in the year of the Horse, the sex ratio at birth significantly increased while fertility decreased.

The lunar hypothesis, that is, the notion that lunar phases can directly afffect human beharior, was tested by time-series analysis of 4,575 crisis center telelphone calls (all calls recorded for a 6-month interval). As expected, the lunar hypothesis was not supported. The 28-day lunr cycle accounted for less than 1% of the variance of the frequency of crisis center calls. Also, as hypothesized from an attribution theory framework, crisis center workers reported significantly greater beleif in lunar effects than a non-crisis-center-worker comparison group.

The objective of this study was to determine whether there are significant circadian, weekly or lunar variations in self-poisoning presentations and whether patients’ names or dates of birth have an influence on the likelihood of self-poisoning by analysing biorythms, numerology and star sign. Setting: Hunter Valley, Australia. Subjects Consecutive adult patients admitted with self-poisoning between January 1987 and June 1993. Results: there were 2215 patients admitted. There was a marked circadian variation. Over 6% of all admissions occurred in each of the hours between 6 p.m. and 1 a.m. compared with less than 2% per hour between 5 a.m. and 9 a.m. This pattern was not different for patients with a diagnosis of depression. Numerology, biorhythms and star signs had no significant correlations with self-poisoning, nor was there a significant weekly or yearly variation in presentations. There was a small but statistically significant sex difference in presentations analysed by lunar phases. At the new moon 60% of self-poisonings were in women, compared with 45% when the mooon was full. The odds ratios (OR) for women to be admitted at full moon and at new moon were 1.27 (95% confidence interval [CI], 0.92-1.66: p value not significant) and 0.73 (95% CI, 0.57-0.92: p = 0.009) respecively. The mean illumination of the moon at the time of overdoes was 50.63% =/- 0.91% for men, compared with 47.45% =/- 0.85% for women (p = 0.014). Conclusion: the circadian cycle (but not weekly, yearly or mystical cycles) should be taken into account when determining staffing levels for poison information and casualty service. The full moon is protetctive for women.