Hello, dear readers - as you know I have been very absent on this blog. After 10 years of blogging - of sounding what I thought a voice of reason in a sea of chaos via the radio, I thought I was ready to move on - close the shutters - shrug saying I have done all that I could do to stress the importance of living with cycles - recognizing the importance of hormones and the cyclic rhythm of circadian biology.
I have been concerned about the suppression of the menstrual cycle with hormonal contraception and lack of recognition about the timing of menstruation and medical treatments - including vaccination. I have interviewed hundreds of people on natural cycles, mental health and endocrine health - stressing the importance of hormones and neuro-endocrine-immune health on my radio shows.
My dedicated web designers and co-authors of my book spent hours and re-creating this website with all of the latest bells and whistles… but I could not even muster to blog - and I have been off the radio for over a year.
Then I was asked to write a chapter about my concerns about menstrual health evaluation and vaccination for an upcoming book on Gardasil - not to mention vaccinating adolescent girls and boys at puberty - a very fragile time of their life. Another colleague asked me to contribute my work to another chapter for a book on autism on the frightening link between ASD and hormonal contraception.
Thought I finally finished what I had been striving to do for the past 30 years…
And then everything changed this week.
Just as we were reeling from the shock of the Las Vegas shooting, Vox reported on the Nobel Prize on medicine. Three men were lauded their work and research on the circadian rhythm. And that, my friends has put me back in the game. What I and so many other feminists and cycle researchers have intuited is not only science - it is now honored and recognized with the highest award possible with major implications for health research - establishing a new field call “chronobiology”.
So I guess, I am back.
I appreciate all of you signing up for my newsletter - I plan to be back on the radio - and I hope to continue blogging.
Long live cycles …
The circadian rhythm research that just won a Nobel prize in medicine, explained.
The award celebrates the study of the tiny biological clocks in every living thing.
Three American scientists have won the Nobel Prize in physiology or medicine for their discoveries of the microscopic biological machinery that controls the circadian rhythm, or the 24-hour body clock.
Humans, plants, and animals are all ruled by an internal clock that runs on a 24-hour, light-dark cycle in sync with the sun. And there’s not just one of these clocks inside us: They’re in every single cell of every organism — from a tiny bacterium to a large redwood tree.
In humans, these biological clocks anticipate various activities throughout the day, from waking up to sleeping and eating, by regulating things like hormone levels, temperature, and metabolism. Our circadian rhythm is intimately tied to our health and well-being (which helps explain why jet lag or a late-night shift work can be so draining and harmful).
The three Nobel laureates — Jeffrey C. Hall of the University of Maine, Michael Rosbash of Brandeis University, and Michael W. Young of Rockefeller University — “were able to peek inside our biological clock and elucidate its inner workings,” the Nobel Prize Committee said in a press release. “Their discoveries explain how plants, animals, and humans adapt their biological rhythm so that it is synchronized with the Earth’s revolutions.”
Press Release
2017-10-02
The Nobel Assembly at Karolinska Institutet has today decided to award
the 2017 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine
jointly to
Jeffrey C. Hall, Michael Rosbash and Michael W. Young
for their discoveries of molecular mechanisms controlling the circadian rhythm
“Since the seminal discoveries by the three laureates, circadian biology has developed into a vast and highly dynamic research field, with implications for our health and well being.”
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