Department of Psychiatry, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill, NC, 27599, USA.
Carolina Center for Neurostimulation, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill, NC, 27599, USA.
Eur J Appl Physiol. 2020 Jun;120(6):1371-1381. doi: 10.1007/s00421-020-04369-7. Epub 2020 Apr 18.
Both geomagnetic and solar activity fluctuate over time and have been proposed to affect human physiology. Heart rate variability (HRV) has substantial health implications regarding the ability to adapt to stressors and has been shown to be altered in many cardiovascular and neurological disorders. Intriguingly, previous work found significant, strong correlations between HRV and geomagnetic/solar activity. The purpose of this study to replicate these findings. We simultaneously measured HRV during a 30-day period.
We recruited 20 healthy participants and measured their HRV for a 30-day period. We also collected geomagnetic and solar activity during this period for investigating their relationship with the HRV data.
In agreement with previous work, we found several significant correlations between short-term HRV and geophysical time-series. However, after correction for autocorrelation, which is inherent in time-series, the only significant results were an increase in very low frequency during higher local geomagnetic activity and a geomagnetic anticipatory decrease in heart rate a day before the higher global geomagnetic activity. Both correlations were very low. The loss of most significant effects after this correction suggests that previous findings may be a result of autocorrelation. A further note of caution is required since our and the previous studies in the field do not correct for multiple comparisons given the exploratory analysis strategy.
We thus conclude that the effects of geomagnetic and solar activity are (if present) most likely of very small effect size and we question the validity of the previous studies given the methodological concerns we have uncovered with our work.
地磁和太阳活动随时间波动，据推测会影响人体生理机能。心率变异性（HRV）对适应压力的能力具有重要的健康意义，并且已在许多心血管和神经紊乱疾病中被证实会发生改变。有趣的是，先前的研究发现 HRV 与地磁/太阳活动之间存在显著且强烈的相关性。本研究旨在复制这些发现。我们同时在 30 天的时间内测量 HRV。
我们招募了 20 名健康参与者，并在 30 天的时间内测量了他们的 HRV。在此期间，我们还收集了地磁和太阳活动数据，以研究它们与 HRV 数据的关系。
与先前的研究结果一致，我们发现 HRV 与地球物理时间序列之间存在几种显著相关性。然而，在纠正时间序列固有的自相关后，仅发现了一些显著结果：当地磁活动较高时，极低频增加，并且在全球地磁活动较高前一天，心率出现地磁前导性下降。这两个相关性都非常低。在进行此校正后，大多数显著效应的丧失表明先前的发现可能是自相关的结果。由于我们的研究和该领域的先前研究采用的是探索性分析策略，因此没有进行多次比较校正，因此需要进一步谨慎。
因此，我们得出的结论是，地磁和太阳活动的影响（如果存在的话）很可能是非常小的影响，鉴于我们研究中发现的方法学问题，我们对先前的研究提出质疑。
