Spring fever
By Ludy Astraquillo Ongkeko, Ph.D.
Today’s biologists unintentionally articulate how those affected by the arrival of spring react.
“As spring begins, all is not cheeriness, flowers, and chirping birds. Spring is a peak time for suicide, depression and ulcers, and is not necessarily the peak time for love.”
Are the above descriptions timely?
One merely has to scan the dailies’ health sections. More and more cases of depression, evidenced by bouts of what have been identified as illnesses of the mind are read and re-read.
Spring has been featured as one season that has arrived with more and newer drugs publicized: more and much more are being tested. Why are there numerous advertised notices for ‘qualified’ participants for clinical trials?
Researchers disclosed one apt commentary: “Our field is a ‘nonstop’ quest for participants in clinical trials because of the growing needs of today’s population, hopes for living longer are tied down to their health concerns.”
Studies are based on ongoing illnesses that reportedly disclose how they have found scant help from certain fields of medicine obtaining in present-day treatments.
When asked, another research analyst working on clinical trials opined how depression increases in the spring, even among those who are not candidates for suicide. Counselors are quick to report that their offices and clinics are full. They are not taking in ‘new patients.’
What the contemporary chronological biologists state about the occurrence of ulcers seems to be correct. Medical doctors report that the onset of ulcers is most common in the spring. Fall is a close second. How about allergies on the rise when spring makes its presence felt?
Most people seem to have little or no trouble in accepting the fact that plants and animals change with the seasons. But people do, too.
People are part of the natural world: time is really their fourth dimension.
In observing people who talk about the weather, it is no longer just a topic of conversational exchange for want of nothing else to mull about. The weather does take center stage because of health reasons.
Owing to unexplained reasons for some short-term illnesses, argument seems scarce on why scores of people say they are ‘just over’ the flu or ‘down with the flu,’ or having been ‘under the weather.’ Wouldn’t it be closer to the truth if patients were to observe that their flu bug is part of the allergies triggered by spring?
Albeit not always cheerful, as evidenced by those around us who are greatly annoyed by allergies at this time of the year, spring is not all that bad.
Spring brings the rains so drastically needed after winter, making possible the emergence of lovely greenery around. There is a sense of rejuvenation in making the population more inclined to embracing spring.
Nature is at its best. When that is so, is there a likelihood that human beings would tend to be at their best too?
