Today is a really warm day in São Paulo and I've been thinking a lot about how the weather could make us stronger or weaker. Since I can't go to bed under this heat why not write a little bit?
Alexis de Tocqueville, the prophet of democracy and inspired writer and observer, is quoted in his biography with the following thought: "If one day I come to write a book about medicine I guarantee it will not be like all the existing books that are published every day. I will sustain and prove that in order to feel well it is necessary, first, to eat corn and pork meat, to eat very little, a lot or nothing, depending on the circumstances; to make your bed on the floor and sleep all dressed up; to travel in one week from hot to cold temperatures and from cold to hot temperatures, to put your hands to work or wake up in a ditch: above all, don't think..." (extracted from a letter of Alexis de Tocqueville to Chabrol, in Chesapeake Bay, January 16 of 1832, according to Hugh Brogan's biography of Alexis de Tocqueville). This happened while AT travelled across the US in the early 19th century. He was obsessed with the idea of dying, he had excruciating abdominal pains and thought that it was from a disease that would kill him at any moment. After travelling for a long time and surviving several near death experiences, like 3 boat crashes, one of witch in very cold conditions in the Mississippi River, (the steam boat he was in exploded right after the crash), I can bet he went from thinking he was very fragile to thinking he was invincible.
I shared one of my hypothesis that exercising might prevent cancer by helping the body produce heat shock proteins, the proteins responsible for reconstituting damaged DNA. Strenuous exercising is proven to increase HSP levels, just as severe variations in temperature, and high performance athletes have a much lower cancer incidence, according to my oncologist (I could not find data on this topic but I can't think of many athletes that had cancer).
My hypothesis is the following: if one lives in a severely controlled temperature environment and does not exercise one would have all the reasons to have reduced HSP levels and therefore be more likely to suffer from genetic mutations, some of which could lead to cancer.
I am writing this with no scientific data whatsoever, I could find no sources of air-conditioning consumption by country, like I've had in my other hypothesis, and therefore cannot correlate air-conditioning usage and cancer incidence, but I thought this could be an interesting topic for an adventurous researcher.
If anyone knows of any data sources of air-conditioning consumption by country I would really appreciate a hint, the only thing I could find on the topic was around air-conditioning consumption in the US.
Anyways the more I think about all these crazy hypothesis the more I find that we are simply trading-off a wild life and a modern life, with a much better prospect to live longer under a modern life style.
Below are two examples that we cannot avoid that lead to DNA damage and therefore make our body naturally require heat shock proteins:
- Cell Phones: the ionizing radiation from cell phones damage DNA and cell phones are everywhere;
- Sun exposure: the sun radiation damages DNA but we need sun light to produce vitamin D.
Anyway this is just a long way to say that I don't mean to scare anyone about their air-conditioning usage, I am indeed a heavy user (I've always worked in air-conditioned environments), but just a crazy insight I had that if any biologist or cancer researcher is looking for research topics this could be one.
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