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A CLOCK ticks in nearly every cell of the body. And they change how the tissues work in a daily rhythm.

A Lancet Psychiatry study of 91,000 people found a disrupted body clock was linked with depression, bipolar disorder and other problems.

The Glasgow researchers said it was a warning to societies becoming less in tune with these natural rhythms.

Although the study did not look at mobile phone use, Daniel Smith, one of the University of Glasgow researchers, said that it was “likely” that some of the people in the study who had diffi culties might be using social media at night.

“For me absolutely my mobile phone goes off before 10 at night and that’s it, because obviously we didn’t evolve to be looking at screens when we should be sleeping,” he said.

People in the study wore activity monitors for a week to see how disrupted their clocks were. Those who were highly active at night or inactive during the day were classed as being disrupted.

And they were between 6 percent and 10 percent more likely to have been diag-nosed with a mood disorder than people who had a more typical — active in the day, inactive at night — pattern.

Smith, a psychiatrist, told the BBC, “These are not huge differences.

“But what is striking is it is pretty robust across lots of interesting out-comes.”

The study found higher rates of major depression, bipolar disorder, more lone-liness, lower happiness, worse reaction times and more mood instability in people with body-clock disruption.

However, the study cannot tell if the disruption is causing the mental illness or is just a symptom of it. That will take further work.

The body clock certainly exerts a pow-erful effect throughout the body.

Mood, hormone levels, body tem-perature and metabolism all fl uctuate in a daily rhythm.

Even the risk of a heart attack soars every morning as the body gets the engine running to start a new day.

Smith said, “The study tells us the body clock is really important for mood disorders and should be given greater priority in research and in way we orga-nize societies.

“It wouldn’t be too controversial to say we need to reorganize the way we learn and work to be in tune with our natural rhythms.”

The study used data from the U.K.’s Biobank research project. However, many of the participants were quite old. Aiden Doherty, from the University of Oxford, said, “The study population is not ideal to examine the causes of mental health, given that 75 percent of disorders start before the age of 24 years.”

But he added the study showed the way for a similar research in “adolescents and younger adults to help transform our understanding of the causes and conse-quences, prevention, and treatment of mental health disorders.” (SD-Agencies)

How to get rid of mosquito bites

IF an innocent outdoor BBQ usually leaves you covered in nasty red mosquito welts — yet your friend is always left unscathed — you can blame another common sea-sonal annoyance: allergies. Those itchy red bumps on your skin are actually an allergic reaction to the mosquito’s saliva, according to Rajani Katta, a board-cer-tifi ed dermatologist based in Bellaire, Texas, the United States.

“The reaction is caused by salivary pro-teins introduced when adult female mos-quitoes penetrate the skin,” she says.

So just like some people are crazy-aller-gic to nuts and while others like to down a jar of peanut butter for a midnight snack, some people will have a more severe reac-tion to mosquito bites than others.

The good news: Finding itch relief is easier if you stick to the right methods — and avoid the common home rem-edies that make bumps worse. Popular “cures” like witch hazel, lemon juice and

apple cider vinegar actually do more harm than good.

“All three of those can irritate the skin, so they might increase infl ammation and redness,” explains Katta.

The number one weapon at your dis-posal can likely be found in your medicine cabinet. “I usually go straight to 1 percent hydrocortisone cream used twice a day,” Katta says. “That has the benefi t of calm-ing both the infl ammation — helping reduce the redness and the swelling — and the itching.”

The topical steroid works in most cases, but Katta advises against using it on your face for more than a month. “Steroids cause thinning of the skin,” she explains. “So it makes you more susceptible to cuts and bruises, especially in fragile areas like your eyelids.”

Whatever you do, resist the urge to scratch. Any open sores put you at a higher risk of infection, and could lead to

long-lasting hyperpigmentation or worse, scarring.

Try tapping the irksome bumps instead. “There’s a particular nerve fi ber that car-ries the message of itching to the brain, but you can distract it tapping or applying pressure,” Katta says.

As for your next outdoor excursion, beat bugs before they bite by stocking up on insect repellent and wearing long sleeves and pants. Before you head outdoors, apply insect repellent lotions. Allethrin lamps and geraniol candles can also help de-bug the backyard. (SD-Agencies)

Body clock linked to mood disordersMOST people, when they

retire, get a gold watch. James Harrison deserves so much more than that.

Harrison, known as the “Man with the Golden Arm,” has donated blood nearly every week for 60 years. After all those donations, the 81-year-old Australian man “retired” last Friday. The occa-sion marked the end of a monumental chapter.

According to the Australian Red Cross Blood Service, he has helped save the lives of more than 2.4 million Australian babies.

Harrison’s blood has unique, disease-fi ghting antibodies that have been used to develop an injection called Anti-D, which helps fi ght against rhesus disease.

This disease is a condition where a pregnant woman’s blood actually starts attacking her unborn baby’s blood cells. In the worst cases, it can result in brain damage or death for the babies.

The condition develops when a preg-nant woman has rhesus-negative blood (RhD negative) and the baby in her womb has rhesus-positive blood (RhD positive), inherited from its father.

If the mother has been sensitized to rhesus-positive blood, usually during a previous pregnancy with an rhesus-posi-tive baby, she may produce antibodies that destroy the baby’s “foreign” blood cells. That could be deadly for the baby.

Harrison’s remarkable gift of giving started when he had major chest surgery when he was just 14, the Australian Red Cross Blood Service said.

Blood donations saved his life, so he pledged to become a blood donor.

A few years later, doctors discovered his blood contained the antibody which could be used to create Anti-D injec-tions, so he switched over to making blood plasma donations to help as many people as possible.

Doctors aren’t exactly sure why Har-rison has this rare blood type, but they think it might be from the transfusions he received when he was 14, after his surgery. He’s one of no more than 50 people in Australia known to have the antibodies, the blood service says.

“Every bag of blood is precious, but James’ blood is particularly extraordi-nary. His blood is actually used to make a life-saving medication, given to moms whose blood is at risk of attacking their unborn babies. Every batch of Anti-D that has ever been made in Australia has come from James’ blood.” Falkenmire said.

Blood donor saved 2.4 million babies

“And more than 17 percent of women in Australia are at risk, so James has helped save a lot of lives.”

Anti-D, produced with Harrison’s antibodies, prevents women with rhesus-negative blood from devel-

oping RhD antibodies during pregnancy. More than three million doses of Anti-D have been issued to Australian mothers with negative blood types since 1967.

Harrison’s own daughter was given the Anti-D vaccine.

“That resulted in my second grandson being born healthy,” Harrison said. “And that makes you feel good yourself that you saved a life there, and you saved many more and that’s great.”

The discovery of Harrison’s antibodies was an absolute game changer.

“In Australia, up until about 1967, there were literally thousands of babies dying each year, doctors didn’t know why, and it was awful. Women were having numer-ous miscarriages and babies were being born with brain damage,” said Jemma Falkenmire of the Australian Red Cross Blood Service. “Australia was one of the fi rst countries to discover a blood donor with this antibody, so it was quite revolu-tionary at the time.”

That would be more than two million lives, according to the blood service, and for that Harrison is considered a national

hero in Australia. He’s won numerous awards for his generosity, including the Medal of the Order of Australia, one of the country’s most prestigious honors.

“It becomes quite humbling when they say, ‘oh you’ve done this or you’ve done that or you’re a hero’,” Harrison said. “It’s something I can do. It’s one of my talents, probably my only talent, is that I can be a blood donor.”

Now that Harrison has given his last blood donation (in Australia you can’t donate blood past the age of 81), Falken-mire and others hope people with similar antibodies in their blood will step up and donate.

“All we can do is hope there will be people out there generous enough to do it, selfl essly in the way he’s done,” she said.

(SD-Agencies)

James Harrison is known as the “Man with the Golden Arm.”James Harrison is known as the “Man with the Golden Arm.” SD-AgenciesSD-Agencies

Harrison gives blood for a last time last Friday.Harrison gives blood for a last time last Friday.