It is not the 1st of April so presumably this “lunatic science” about the effects of a waning full moon on improved results after surgery – taking “lunatic” in its proper sense of moon-sick – is not just fantasy!
The message is clear. Schedule any cardiac surgery you may need during a waning full moon! But it does go against previous “lunatic belief” expressed by a UK politician as recently as 2009. Tredinnick, a Conservative MP, is a supporter of astrology especially the use of it in medical practice!
In October 2009, British politician David Tredinnick asserted that during a full moon “[s]urgeons will not operate because blood clotting is not effective and the police have to put more people on the street.”.
The belief that there is correlation between specific stages of the Earth’s lunar cycle and behavior in animals including human beings that cannot simply be explained by variation in light levels. There is no scientific reason to expect this to be the case and, in spite of numerous studies, no significant lunar effect on human behaviour has been established. Scholars debunking the effect sometimes refer to it as the Transylvanian hypothesis or the Transylvanian effect to emphasise its fanciful nature – Wikipedia
One wonders of course whether the effects of the full moon are affecting the surgeons or the patients.
This “study” – not funded- from the Rhode Island Hospital has just been published:
J. H. Shuhaiber, J. L. Fava, T. Shin, N. Dobrilovic, A. Ehsan, A. Bert, F. Sellke. The influence of seasons and lunar cycle on hospital outcomes following ascending aortic dissection repair. Interactive CardioVascular and Thoracic Surgery, 2013; DOI: 10.1093/icvts/ivt299
Franke Sellke
Waning and full moon cycles impact length of stay, mortality
PROVIDENCE, R.I. – If you need cardiac surgery in the future, aortic dissection in particular, reach for the moon. Or at least try to schedule your surgery around its cycle. According to a study at Rhode Island Hospital, acute aortic dissection (AAD) repair performed in the waning full moon appears to reduce the odds of death, and a full moon was associated with shorter length of stay (LOS). The study is published online in advance of print in the journal Interactive Cardiovascular and Thoracic Surgery.
The purpose of the study was to assess the effect of natural time variations of both the season and the lunar cycle phase on hospital survival and length of stay (number of days a patient is in the hospital) following acute aortic dissection repair.
The k2p blog 