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Geomagnetic Field Effects on Living Systems

suicide attempts, homicides, and trafc accidents (Nikolaev et al., 1976; Kay, 1994, 2004; Halberg et al.,

2005; Berk et al., 2006). Disturbed geomagnetic activity can also exacerbate existing disorders and is

correlated with signifcant increases in cardiac arrhythmias, cardiovascular disease, the incidence of

myocardial infarction-related deaths, blood fow changes, BP elevation, and epileptic seizures (Malin

and Srivastava, 1979; Knox et al., 1979; Stoupel, 1993; Stoupel et al., 1995; Persinger and Psych, 1995;

Ghione et al., 1998; Cornélissen et al., 2002; Caswell et al., 2016).

More recently, several researchers have found a signifcant correlation between HRV and the GMF

strength (McCraty et al., 2017; Timofejeva et al., 2017; Alabdulgader et al., 2018). Teir studies have

shown that the autonomic nervous system responds to solar and geomagnetic activity (McCraty et al.,

2017; Timofejeva et al., 2017; Alabdulgader et al., 2018). Moreover, it was found that the number of acute

myocardial infarction events afer low geomagnetic activity and high GCR days increased by a ffh, the

obtained results indicate that GMF may be related to the development of myocardial infarction (Stoupel,

2008; Stoupel et al., 2012; Podolská, 2018; Jaruševičius et al., 2018; Žiubrytė et al., 2018).

Podolská (2018) investigated the impact of the Earth’s ionospheric and the GMF changes on mortal­

ity from cardiovascular causes of death in the period 1994–2011 in the Czech Republic. Changes in the

ionosphere caused by solar activity are described by ionospheric parameters. As for the ionospheric

parameters, critical frequency of the ionospheric F2 layer (foF2) and Total Electron Content (TEC) were

analyzed. Te TEC parameter, measured since 2008, quantifes the content of free electrons in the iono­

sphere and was measured by the delay in GPS satellite signals. Te results confrmed the hypothesis that

there is no direct correlation between the geomagnetic solar index, Kp, and the number of deaths from

acute myocardial infarction (code I21) or brain stroke (code I64) during the maxima of the solar cycle.

In contrast, the ionospheric parameters of foF2 and TEC explained a greater part of the variability in the

number of deaths for acute myocardial infarction or brain stroke than the model with solar parameters.

Te analysis showed that, because the values are geographically specifc, the ionospheric parameters

which may describe the variability in the number of deaths from cardiovascular diseases are better than

the solar indices. Cardiovascular diseases thus respond to the changes in the solar activity and to abnor­

mal solar events indirectly through a concentration of electrical charges in the Earth’s environment.

In addition, Jaruševičius et al. (2018) investigated correlations between the strength of time-vary­

ing aspects of the local GMF in diferent frequencies and incidence of myocardial infarctions in the

period January 1, 2016–December 31, 2016, in Lithuania. As shown in Figures 6.14–6.16, this Lithuania

FIGURE 6.14 Te correlation between number of weekly myocardial infarction cases in women and mean

magnetic power in diferent frequency ranges spanning a time of one week (Jaruševičius et al., 2018). *p < 0.05.

(Reproduced with permission from Jaruševičius et al. (2018), Copyright 2018, MDPI.)