[Andrew K Fletcher (OP)]

Please Help and Join Our Study to Show that Varicose Veins and Oedema will improve using Inclined Bed Therapy (IBT) and do not Require Surgery.
To contribute your own observations to this important research you will need to become a member of the Nakedscientists forum.

Interview by Patrick Timpone on One Radio Network In Texas where Andrew explains how his discovery in plant and tree circulation led to applying it to our own circulation and question how we sleep and sit.

Using the Image link from a photobucket account to show pictures in your post:

Choose the code that has the [ img ][ /img ] boxes either side from photobucket in the drop down box, click on this link titled img code in photobucket highlite it and right click while on the image code / link and click copy. Go to your post and right click in the window that contains your text, click paste. Job done


6" or 15cms head end     3" or 7.5 cms middle   castors off the bottom
Why do varicose veins shrink after only 4 weeks of avoiding a flat bed by sleeping on an inclined mattress affording a level but tilted surface with the head end 6 inches or fifteen cm's higher than the foot end?

How does physiology Literature account for this interesting observation?

You might be interested to learn that the causes of varicose veins are not understood and therefore the chance of anyone providing an answer to my question is pretty remote.

Why do veins become varicose?
The answer, in most cases, is that we don’t really know what causes varicose veins. There are two main theories.

Examination of Varicose Veins and Blow Outs or bulges.

Post 30th July 2008

Karen Provided us with before and after photographs from several days of IBT. She also provided us with stats showing a marked decrease in blood pressure which can be found here on her thread about congestive heart failure and insomnia.  http://www.thenakedscientists.com/forum/index.php?topic=7069.125

Alun
We now have Our predicted photographic proof to support the above statement and together with the testimonies of several more people who have experienced varicose vein shrinkage and significant Oedema reduction. And still no interest from the medical profession? A series of photographs have been posted in support of this study which show a slow progressive shrinking in varicose veins.
Penny
A photograph of Penny who has also had problems with a large varicose vein that no longer bulges.
Jude
A Photograph showing my wife’s varicose vein, which went flat in 1994 and has not presented any problems since.
Old Dragon
Photographs of Oedema and varicose veins from Old Dragon who has also provided us with statistics for blood pressure, heart rate, respiration rate etc showing again a reduction in blood pressure due to sleeping on an inclined bed. We have some compelling anecdotal evidence. But is it really anecdotal when a prediction is made based on previous pilot studies over many years and is then proven to be correct and fully repeatable? Or is the word anecdotal in this case used to validate ignorance and contempt for something that has the potential to save life and limb?

Old Biker who accidentally forgot to take blocks out from under his bed, used to keep the head board away from the wall while it was drying became interested in why he felt much better after sleeping on an incline & googled to find our study and posted his own experiences. At 68 years young he has also noticed his varicose veins are shrinking.
Squirrel, who I know personally has provided us with another important testimony stating that her vascular surgeon advised her that after 4 repeated surgeries on her varicose veins they would inevitably return and require more surgery. she has avoided further surgery for 5 years and I have seen her legs and they no longer present any varicose problems after tilting her bed.

Squirrel has discovered that IBT assists the nerves to rapidly recover from injury with botox injections, rendering the botox useless. This is a very important observation because it confirms many years of research into neurological conditions including multiple sclerosis, Parkinson’s Disease, Cerebral Palsy,  Arachnoiditis and Spinal Cord Injury that IBT stimulates nerves to recover and regenerate.

From the onset of this study we are evidently on course to demonstrate that gravity is a beneficial driving force for circulation. We need many more people to join our study and provide us with vital photographic and written evidence. We are hoping for at least 50 people with varicose veins and / or oedema to become pioneers of this Free therapy.

Photographs can be uploaded to www.photobucket.com and then a link can be pasted to your photographs in this thread. Make a folder for your photographs where you intend to keep them because if you move them to another place in photobucket they will not be shown in the thread. Please also email me a copy at full resolution.

A simple and tidy way to modify a bed is to get a length of strong grey soil pipe from a builders merchant. Cut to correct lengths so Top of bed would be 7.5 inches middle of bed 3.25 inches and bottom of the bed 1.5 inches these fit over the castors of the bed and provide a better looking modification than the blocks. One length of pipe will do several beds and they are pretty cheap too, especially if you find one in the recycle centre that has not been used. The casters are then inserted into the pipe lengths.

Inclined Bed Therapy on Youtube:

Andrew K Fletcher

If you are of the opinion that simply tilting a bed will have little effect on human physiology, perhaps you might be interested in what happens to the body when the bed is tilted in the opposite direction to imitate the massive effect that micro gravity has on healthy astronauts during space flight.

Staying in a NASA Bed For 90 Days Would Fetch You $17,000

NASA is appealing for healthy people to sleep on a bed tilted head down for long three months and is offering $5000 per month. Why would NASA be paying so much money for people to stay in bed?.
Their Bed Rest project aims at studying the consequences of long-term micro gravity in humans by making you lay down on a slightly-tilted bed with head down and feet up. Does not sound a lot to ask for $5000 a month? Or does it?
Participants will have to live in a special research unit during the entire study period and would be cautiously fed with a controlled diet. Immediately following the initial 11-15-days, applicants will be subjected to prolonged stay of 90 days lying in bed with exceptional change of undergoing specific tests.
On daily basis, they will be awake for 16 hours and can take a sleep of 8 hours. As a pat of process, they will undergo countless tests to identify changes in their state of their bone, muscle, heart and circulatory system, and nervous system plus their nutritional condition and ability to fight against infections would be checked. Want to give it a try? To apply click here.
NASA Human Test Subject Facility (HTSF) http://www.bedreststudy.com/
 The Bed Rest Study web site is currently down for maintenance. We will be accepting new applicants in the near future
But you need to ask yourself why would NASA be offering so much money to sleep head down tilt for such a long time? I don’t mean ask about their reasons for advancing the space programme, but why would someone want to pay you all that money?

http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/behindscenes/bed_rest_study.html

To Help with our study, you need to join Nakedscientists forum in order to post your observations and photographs.

[Andrew K Fletcher (OP)]

Question for Doctors and Nurses: Please explain why varicose veins shrink after 4 weeks of inclined bed therapy and continue to improve further over the following months? Inclined bed therapy is sleeping on a level but tilted mattress sloping down from head to toe at a five degree angle, head being higher than feet. This is a prediction based on pilot study results so if you have varicose veins and oedema I suggest you read carefully through this thread as it evolves.

The literature you rely on cannot explain why sleeping head up rather than head down, or legs elevated is having such a profound and obvious beneficial effect.

[paul.fr]

Andy
Whilst this is slightly off topic, those reading may find your reply of interest.

1. Does this question relate to studies that you have conducted, or research carried out?

2. When did "inclined bed therapy" first begin to be researched?

[Andrew K Fletcher (OP)]

Hi Paul

Yes this relates to my own research into the way solutes change pressures inside the body as they are drawn through the vessels by gravity. The first to observe improvements in varicose veins was a nurse called Stephanie from Paignton, who reported improvements in her varicose veins after a 4-week period of IBT. Coincidence? I would agree, but simultaneously my wife’s varicose vein deflated and no longer ached and this happened 2 weeks earlier than Stephanie’s improvements. Followed by improvements in my mother’s varicose veins and my late father’s varicose veins improved also. And then Penny Meredith reported bulging varicose veins shrinking. And since then there have been many more reports of improvements in varicose veins, which flies in the face of accepted physiology erroneously suggesting that elevating the legs higher than the heart will improve unsightly veins. It may provide relief temporarily but it simply does not address the underlying cause of varicose veins and indeed makes use of the same gravity driven flow.

When solutes are dissolved in fluids the density of the fluids changes accordingly. When concentrations of solutes rise due predominantly to evaporation of solute free water in the breath and from the skin, the resulting denser fluid is shifted due to the influence of gravity taking the path of least resistance towards the ground. This downward flow is generally in the artery and exerts a positive pressure on the inside of the walls, and forces fluids down under a positive pressure, while at the same time generates a negative tension behind it causing a dragging effect so powerful that it provides a negative tension in the venous return more than capable of pulling fluids from the surrounding tissue back into the venous return and into the main circulation where it is then filtered and excreted in the urine as it should be. Evidence for this is density changes in urine during IBT, measuring urine output density of myself and my partner sharing the same IBT, flat bed rest and head down bed rest. The results were staggering showing IBT to produce urine density significantly higher than flat bed rest or head down bed rest or normal daily activity. But here is the crunch. Urine density dropped off to near water density when Head Down Bed rest was adopted. Proving beyond any shadow of a doubt that salts and other toxins arrive in the bladder because of the interaction of dissolved solutes and gravity.

I didn’t expect any replies to my post, because my own observations cast serious doubt on the validity of accepted and deeply rooted physiology. In fact I would have been surprised if someone had come up with an answer to the initial question.

My research began in 1993 when I was heavily involved in an irrigation project. During which the question arose as to how to address salt build up in land exposed to sustained high evaporation rates. Irrigated land under these conditions inevitably poisons the soil leaving behind a crust of salt. Except where trees are present, they live for many years under the same irrigation scheme yet somehow manage to maintain the equilibrium of salt verses water ratio. So the question as to what exactly these trees were doing with the salts arose leading me to investigate fluid transport in trees and plants, later applying the same paradigm to the way animals and humans function, leading on to testing the theory by avoiding a flat bed and using IBT to see what if anything changes, which took place in the early part of 1994. Our bed has remained tilted ever since and so has the bed of many friends, family and complete strangers who have realised that there might be something seriously wrong with sleeping on a flat totally unscientific bed!

Andrew   

[Andrew K Fletcher (OP)]

   Varicose veins shrink during Inclined Bed Therapy, usually within a 4 week period of avoiding a flat bed. No surgery, drugs or diet changes, it's a fact! Varicose veins are caused because the pressure inside the vein is increased. A vein is not strong enough to resist high positive pressures resulting from the heart and blood pressure. The arteries however do resist positive pressure effectively. So the question should be how does physiology today explain the absence of positive pressure inside a vein when the heart is believed to be the sole source of output in circulation? The heart is a pump after all and the circulatory system inside our body is linked to the pump. So it is easy to understand why a pump will inevitably inflate both the artery and the vein and therefore easy to understand how varicose veins occur. But the puzzle remains as to why varicose veins do not affect everyone in the same way?

Raising the legs higher than the heart can temporarily relieve varicose veins. The improvements using this method are very short term and the problem does not resolve using this method. Surgery is often used to repair damaged veins, it is often painful, and runs the constant risk of infection along with the possibility of venous collapse, where the repaired vein closes restricting circulation and resulting in further costly surgery.

Also when a person exercises by jogging or walking briskly it will inevitably increase the heart rate and therefore the output from the heart should be expected to increase the pressure in the artery and the vein, yet this does not happen, in fact the pressure in the vein is reduced and the pressure in the artery is increased respectively. This is well known hence the need to exercise following vein surgery.

1.   If the heart is solely responsible for pumping fluids why does a needle inserted into a vein not cause blood to spurt out as it would in an artery?
2.   What is causing the reduction in venous pressure during exercise?
3.   Why does I.B.T. cause the veins to visibly shrink in 4 weeks of avoiding a flat bed?
4.   How does lymph circulation occur?
5.   What is driving the cerebrospinal fluid?
6.      During development, long before a heart emerges, circulation occurs. This is primary circulation. Even before the heart becomes the familiar pump and looks more like a loop of tubing, a pulsatile flow develops. What causes this pulsatile flow?

Andrew K Fletcher

[Andrew K Fletcher (OP)]

http://www.vascularsociety.org.uk/Docs/Provision%20of%20Vascular%20Services.pdf
THE PROVISION OF
VASCULAR SERVICES 2004 Vascular Surgical Society of
Great Britain and Ireland
The provision of an effective vascular service is relatively expensive. Vascular units have high bed occupancies and some of the patients may need prolonged hospital stays, particularly in centres where rehabilitation and community services are not readily available to take over the care of amputees or elderly patients. The surgery is technically demanding and consumes a lot of theatre time with significant demands on ITU/HDU facilities.
Over 30% of the population will develop varicose veins, although recent guidelines from the National Institute for Clinical Excellence (NICE) have undoubtedly reduced referrals to the vascular service from primary care.
Despite this reduction, varicose vein surgery remains a significant demand on the vascular service for the 10% of the population who will develop skin changes as a result of chronic venous insufficiency and for those who have particularly troublesome symptoms.
Chronic venous ulcers occur in 1% - 2% of the population over the age of 60 years and consume up to 2% of total health spending, let alone the associated loss of economic productivity.

Peripheral arterial disease may progress to critical limb ischaemia, with constant and intractable pain preventing sleep, often with ulceration or gangrene of the extremity. These patients are at particular risk of losing their limb without treatment and a high proportion present as emergencies. Interventional treatment is essential to avoid amputation. Such treatment is both clinically valuable and cost-effective4. When loss of the limb becomes unavoidable, amputation and early post-operative rehabilitation is the responsibility of the
vascular surgeon.


Limb Fitting Service/Rehabilitation
Peripheral vascular disease is one of the major indications for lower limb amputation, which is usually performed by vascular surgeons. Patients need local access to a limb fitting service and although this need not necessarily be on the same site, there should be close collaboration between surgeons and prosthetists with a team approach to tailor the individual needs of each patient to their care. A specialist rehabilitation unit is a more appropriate environment than an acute surgical ward for amputees who no longer require active
medical treatment but have not yet reached the stage where they can manage at home.
 The Provision of Vascular Services 2004


http://www.wrongdiagnosis.com/v/varicose_veins/hospital.htm
Hospital Statistics for Varicose veins


http://www.wrongdiagnosis.com/v/varicose_veins/stats-country.htm

Statistics by Country for Varicose veins
Prevalance of Varicose veins:
45 per 1000 (NHIS95)
Prevalance Rate for Varicose veins:
approx 1 in 22 or 4.50% or 12.2 million people in USA



European Journal of Vascular and Endovascular Surgery 2000; 20: 386-9
http://www.gvg.org.uk/vvinfo.htm#causes
Recurrent varicose veins

Varicose veins can recur even after entirely satisfactoy surgical treatment although their reputation for doing so is often overstated. Reasons for the later re-appearance of varicose veins may include:
Inadequate initial operations can lead to the early recurrence of varicose veins. Dissection in the groin and behind the knee to disconnect superficial veins from the deep system, at a site of valvular incompetence, needs to be carried out with meticulous care. The anatomy is often quite variable but it is essential that all small communicating branches of the veins are identified, tied and divided completely otherwise these provide a route for rapid refilling of superficial veins.
Similarly, failure to appreciate that there is more than one separate site of valve leakage at the pre-operative assessment will lead to early failure of the operation if all significant sites of incompetence are not dealt with.
Regrowth of tiny vein branches (neovascularisation) is a somewhat contentious cause of recurrent varicose veins, the probable importance of which is only just beginning to be appreciated. Recent research, much of it carried out in Gloucestershire, has demonstrated conclusively that multiple tiny vein branches can grow and develop through scar tissue in a matter of months, providing a new connection between deep and superficial veins even after an entirely adequate initial disconnection operation. Recognition of this fact has led to a number of modifications of surgical technique aimed at reducing the incidence of the problem. These include:
      - wide resection and diathermy destruction of disconnected branches.
      - routine stripping of the long saphenous vein in the thigh to make communication
        with calf varicose veins more difficult if neovascularisation occurs in the groin.
      - barrier methods to make it more difficult for veins to rejoin, including sewing
        adjacent tissue over the stump of tied vein and covering the divided end of the
        vein with a patch of artificial material such as PTFE.


Guess no one here will admit to having varicose veins. So not much chance of getting anyone to test the inclined bed therapy and disprove or prove what I have stated here either. Which is a crying shame when we are supposed to be interested in science.

[Andrew K Fletcher (OP)]

Thought we were all scientists here. Here we have a great opportunity to prove a very important point in human physiology.

Showing that pressure changes from positive to being low enough to draw the varicose vein back from bulging above the skin surface to being level with the skin surface by altering the tension in the blood inside the vein due to sleeping with the head end of the bed elevated by 6 to 8 inches instead of sleeping flat must be of interest to any physiologist, doctor, vascular surgeon, physiotherapist or indeed that health service in general. Yet this thread is not getting the responses I anticipated. After all, we currently elevate the legs, which is thought to relieve pressure. Yet inadequate, risky and costly surgery continues to be performed and often has to be repeated over and over again. Why? Because operating on a bulging vein does not address why the vein was bulging in the first place! Change the pressure inside the vein and you are addressing the problem at its source!

I demand that a study should be set up to test this. In fact I have been demanding that a study should test this to many High ranking Health Officials, politicians, surgeons, professors doctors and nurses since 1994 when this important discovery was observed for the first time on my wife’s varicose vein and the veins of 2 local nurses.

This is by no means the first time I have called for a controlled study into IBT and indeed this thread dated 25/06/2005 on this same forum calls out for that same illusive study. http://www.thenakedscientists.com/forum/index.php?topic=2262 I am grateful to Doctor Chris who highlights some of the bureaucratic B.S. that stands in the way of research and progress today. And all the time people are losing limb and life when all that is required to save many of them is the realisation that gravity works with the circulation and not against it!

While trying to remain calm in the hope of someone who can allow this simple study to take place so that it is under the scrutiny of people who can validate or indeed disprove it --(which will not be the case!) I feel like I am going to explode with rage and anger and punch someone to a bloody pulp. But Calm it must be for now at least.

Google "inclined bed therapy" or "andrew k fletcher"

http://embarrassingproblems.co.uk/varicose.htm
‘Varicose’ simply means swollen
Varicose veins are the price we pay for our upright posture; if we still walked on all fours, we probably wouldn’t have them
One person in five has varicose veins or is likely to get them (Misconception)
Varicose veins usually develop slowly over 10–20 years
Recent research has found that varicose veins are more common in men than in women
60 000 people in England have hospital treatment for varicose veins every year
Varicose veins are more common in Wales than anywhere else in the world

Andrew K Fletcher

[shrewbolt]

Andrew, mind enlightening us on how an erection is driven by gravity? Or has that not come up yet?

[Andrew K Fletcher (OP)]

Oddly enough, impotence has also been reported to have become less of a problem when horizontal bed-rest is avoided, even in diabetes type1 after many years of waking with no erection it has been resolved. However it is far more likely we will be able to conduct a study into varicosity than penile erection, so for now I would like to remain focused on the introduction of a varicose vein study.

However, I will add that simply releasing a denser fluid down an artery, lymph or vein could well induce sufficient pressure as to inflate flaccid veins. And can be shown using soft walled latex or silicone tubing, where one side of an inverted U tube inflates while the other side deflates simply by introducing salt solution at the upper end of the n tube

Andrew, mind enlightening us on how an erection is driven by gravity? Or has that not come up yet?

[BenV]

releasing a denser fluid down an artery

I'm assuming you mean in the direction that blood is already flowing in an artery? Introducing anything against the flow would be difficult.

While I appreciate that you have observed benefits of sleeping on an inclined bed, I'm not fully convinced by your proposed mechanism.  I haven't fully read it through yet, and I know that there are many threads where you explain it on here, so lets not go into that here.

One thing puzzles me though - why would we be physiologically adapted to sleeping off-horizontal?  It's a safe bet to assume we evolved from a species which slept in nests in trees, and therefore foetally.  Do you propose this was a trade off for bipedalism?

Oh, and Andrew, you need to calm down.  If you want to see the research done, you may need to do some of it yourself - demanding that other people carry out research will never work.  I suggest you try to find as many people as possible to try inclining their beds, and have their blood pressure (I assume, in your experience, inclining the bed effects blood pressure?) measured before and after a set period.

Ask them not to change their diet or level of activity during this time.  Anecdotal evidence will get you nowhere - if you can demonstrate a significant change in blood pressure (as one marker) with a significant number of people, and demonstrate that the pressure returns to prior levels after resuming horizontal bed rest, then you are far more likely to get someone to look into it.

It's also pretty important that you do not tell people what it is you're looking for - if someone can just dismiss any effect as placebo, they are less likely to look into it any further.  Tell your volunteers you're looking into something else - sleep patterns maybe?

Do not suggest you know why it happens.  Do not offer any explanation. Do not tell them your mechanism.  Just offer sound data that shows significant improvement.

If you can do that, someone will probably look into it.

[Andrew K Fletcher (OP)]

Ben, introducing solutes even against the blood flow has been done by inducing complete reversal of the blood from the skin to the brain using exercise. Michel Cabanac, University Laval Canada using a doplar placed where the nose meets the eye. Cabanac Initially interpreted his results as the brain trying to cool itself and reversing the blood flow. Yet in Cabanac’s own words, there are no valves, so this cannot be the case. What I proposed to him was that the intense exercise regimen generated sufficient heat to greatly increase the evaporation from the scalp, eyes, face and neck and the resulting changes in density of the fluids beneath the skin surface altered the direction of the bloodflow, against the normal flow.

A new born after taking his / her) first breath releases salts and other chemicals down the main artery as evaporation inevitably changes the density of the fluids in the lungs for the first time.

salt-aerosol has been used experimentally in the lungs of animals.

salt-aerosol is used via nasal introduction of drugs

[BenV]

introducing solutes even against the blood flow has been done by inducing complete reversal of the blood from the skin to the brain using exercise. Michel Cabanac, University Laval Canada using a doplar placed where the nose meets the eye. Cabanac Initially interpreted his results as the brain trying to cool itself and reversing the blood flow. Yet in Cabanac’s own words, there are no valves, so this cannot be the case.

That sounds interesting - could you send me a reference so I can give it a read?

My point was really about the differences in flow dynamics between arterial and venous blood - arterial blood is moving so quickly and at such high pressures that I would doubt solutes could move against it in any meaningful way.

[Andrew K Fletcher (OP)]

M. Cabanac1   and H. Brinnel1
(1)    Laboratoire de Physiologie associé au C.N.R.S. Nℴ 180, Université Claude Bernard, C.H.U., Lyon-Sud, B. P. 12, F-69600 Oullins, France
Accepted: 12 April 1985   
Summary  The direction of the blood flowing in the emissary veins (vena emissaria mastoidea and v. e. partietalis) was recorded in human subjects during moderate hyperthermia and hypothermia. During hyperthermia the blood flowed rapidly from skin to brain. During hypothermia either no flow could be detected or the blood flowed slowly from brain to skin. On two fresh cadavers the calvaria was removed with the scalp adhering. Gentle massaging of the scalp produced abundant drops of blood on the inner surface of the bone each time the scalp was massaged, thus showing that cutaneous blood can flow inward through the bone. These results support the hypothesis of selective brain cooling in hyperthermic humans by offering a possible mechanism.
Key words  Venous blood flow - Temperature regulation - Emissary veins - Brain cooling
News Physiol Sci 1: 41-44, 1986;
1548-9213/86 $5.00
News in Physiological Sciences, Vol 1, 41-44, Copyright © 1986 by International Union of Physiological Sciences
Keeping a Cool Head
M Cabanac
The mammalian brain has poor tolerance to increased temperature. However, when body core temperature rises during exercise or heat stress, the temperature of the brain can remain at a lower level, somewhat independent of the rest of the body. In several mammals the cooling of the brain is related to anatomically well-defined countercurrent heat exchangers. Humans lack these distinct anatomic structures, but significant cooling of the brain can nevertheless occur. Such selective cooling of the brain may have important medical implicantions.

Dean Falk http://www.anthro.fsu.edu/people/faculty/falk/radpapweb.htm

1. Role of emissary veins

Whole-body cooling takes place when arterial blood is cooled through the effects of evaporation of sweat from the body’s surface, a process that also contributes to regulation of brain temperature via its arterial supply. Michel Cabanac and Heiner Brinnel proposed an additional mechanism for selectively cooling the brain under conditions of intense exercise that results in hyperthermia. Because experimental evidence revealed that blood flows out of the cranium through the mastoid, ophthalmic and parietal emissary veins in hypothermic subjects but into the braincase in hyperthermic subjects, Cabanac and Brinnel reasoned that venous blood that is cooled at the head’s surface through the effects of evaporation on dilated veins is selectively delivered into the braincase under, and only under, conditions of hyperthermia (oral temperature of 37.6oC + 0.18o).  The authors noted that innumerable, microscopic emissary veins exist in humans, and demonstrated (by massaging a cadaver’s skullcap) that blood is capable of flowing through this network from the outside of the skull to the diploic veins within the cranial bones and then to the inside of the braincase.

The three emissary veins that were used to record direction of blood flow are located at dispersed points of the network that supplies the entire skull: at the face (ophthalmic), behind the ear (mastoid), and at the top back part of the skull (parietal). (See Figure 1.) Cabanac and Brinnel concluded that when blood flows into the braincase in these three emissary veins, it also does so in the innumerable tiny veins that comprise the entire network. According to this hypothesis, venous blood cooled at the head’s surface under hyperthermic conditions flows into the braincase over a disperse network of tiny veins (the cranial radiator). This is a selective brain cooling mechanism that serves to keep brain temperature in check. Cabanac and Brinnel’s hypothesis became controversial among physiologists who claimed that existence of an anatomical network of cranial veins capable of delivering cooled blood into the braincase was speculative. This point will be returned to in Section III.     

[BenV]

I'll give that a proper read soon.  But my point still stands that it's practically impossible to introduce solutes that will move against the flow in arteries.  I was only being pedantic that arteries were included in the list.

[Andrew K Fletcher (OP)]

Ben, No it is not impossible to introduce a solute and cause the arterial blood flow to change direction, in fact it is highly probable that introducing solutes will slow down the arterial blood flow and cause circulatory collapse leading to respiratory failure followed by cardiac arrest. This can be observed in a simple tubular model showing two directional flow in the same tube, and has been observed many times by me and a few others by adding different coloured dyes to the solutes we can see for example a blue less dense fluid flowing up and a red more dense fluid flowing down, the turbulence caused by this effect shows how the arterial revered flow scenario is probable. The resulting back pressure generated by the falling solutes would pose considerable problems for the heart to overcome.

Also, using silicone or latex walled tubes we can show solutes inflating the wall of an inverted n tube and deflating the juxtapose solute free side showing clearly that solutes change the internal pressures of the model to a degree that is clearly visible with the naked eye

[Andrew K Fletcher (OP)]

This question is very basic. I have yet to receive one single reply as to why varicose veins shrink when the head of the bed is raised to +5 degree to the horizontal and flat bedrest is avoided for 4 weeks? If you are working in the Health Industry then you should want to know more about this and you should want to question why it is not mentioned in any literature.

If you don't have an answer then you should say "I don't have an answer" To ignore this question is not an option because I will continue to badger everyone until I get a statisfactory answer..

What happens when we sleep the opposite way round with our head down?


F. Louisy1   , C. Gaudin1, J. M. Oppert1   , A. Güell2 and C. Y. Guezennec1

(1)  C.E.R.M.A. = Centre d'Etudes et de Recherches de Médecine Aérospatiale, Base d'Essais en vol, F-91228 Brétigny-sur-Orge Cedex, France
(2)  Centre National d'Etudes Spatiales, Toulouse, France
(3)  CNES-NASA = Centre National d'Etudes, Spatiales, National Aéronautics and Space Agency, France

Accepted: 18 April 1990 

Summary  Venous distensibility of the lower limbs was assessed in six healthy men who were submitted twice successively to 1 month of –6° head-down bedrest, with and without lower body negative pressure (LBNP) (LBNP subjects and control subjects, respectively). Venous capacity ( V v,max, in ml·100 ml–1) of the legs was determined by mercury strain gauge plethysmography with venous occlusion. Plethysmographic measurements were made on each subject before (Dc), during (D6 and D20) and after (5th day of recovery, D+5) bedrest. During bedrest, LBNP was applied daily, several times a day to the subjects submitted to this procedure. Results showed a gradual increase in V v,max (ml·100 ml–1) throughout the bedrest, both in the control group [ V v,max = 2.11 SD 0.54 at Dc, 2.69 SD 0.29 at D6, 4.39 SD 2.08 at D20, 2.39 SD 0.69 at D+5, P<0.001 (ANOVA)] and in the LBNP group [ V v,max = 2.07 SD 0.71 at Dc, 2.85 SD 1.19 at D6, 3.75 SD 1.74 at D20, 2.43 SD 0.94 at D+5, P<0.001 (ANOVA)], without significant LBNP effect. These increases were of the same order as those encountered during spaceflight. It is concluded that –6° head-down bedrest is a good model to simulate the haemodynamic changes induced by exposure to weightlessness and that LBNP did not seem to be a good technique to counteract the adverse effects of weightlessness on the capacitance vessels of the lower limbs. This latter conclusion raises the question of the role and magnitude of leg venous capacitance in venous return and cardiac regulation.
Key words  Vein haemodynamics - Bedrest - Lower body negative pressure - Venous return

This study was part of a joint CNES — NASA project designed to evaluate the efficiency of periodic lower body negative pressure exposures to prevent microgravity effects on certain physiological parameters (orthostatic tolerance, work capacity, muscle changes, etc.... in order to prepare the future manned space missions Hermes and Colombus.

[paul.fr]

Andrew, i may have asked this before...
But, how did you arrive at the 6 inches or 5 degree angle? Why not 8 , or 3 degrees?

[Andrew K Fletcher (OP)]

Going higher than 6 degrees means your comfort is compromised as you move down the bed. So there is a trade off from not sliding down the bed.

Originally I was trying to find a way to determine the optimum angle for circulation according to the way solutes are moved when suspended or dissolved in liquid.

As I was experimenting with fluids in clear plastic tubes, and observing how solutes rotate fluids in a closed loop of tubing, the downward flowing solute added side suspended vertically, representing the phloem in trees and the arteries in the human body, while the upward flowing less dense solute free side representing the upward flowing xylem in trees and venous return in the human body.

So logically, to stretch this closed loop of water filled tubing from one end of the bed to the other and observing how solutes alter the steady state of fluids within to a powerful flow and return circulation when the bed is raised to 5 degrees. And to see a circulation where the solutes flow down one side of the loop of tubing and cause clean water to flow over the top of the downward flowing solute giving rise to a two directional flow with no overall rotation of the complete loop of tubing when raised lower than 4 degrees. Adding food colouring to solutes gives a clear visual picture of the flow and turbulence caused by the solutes as they move allows one to easily determine how the circulation is flowing.

The proof that the angle was correct came from several people who had experiences some pretty amazing results from varicose veins going flat or near flat within 4 weeks of avoiding a flat bed. This was the Eureka moment for me. It told me that solutes do alter the flow of fluids through the human body and that the pressure than had been causing the veins to bulge had now changed to a greatly reduced pressure pulling the veins in. And this can be the only answer as to why lowering the legs as opposed to raising them addresses oedema in the lower limbs by changing the direction of the flow back through the veins and into the main circulation where it is excreted in the urine.

[Andrew K Fletcher (OP)]

Accept the challenge and go find a single explanation anywhere that addresses THE FACT that varicose veins are observed with the naked eye to substantially reduce in size when flat bed-rest is avoided by raising the head end of the bed 15 cm's higher than the foot end. This is not rocket science and anyone in their own home can repeat this, yet it is nowhere to be found in the literature. WHY DO YOU THINK THIS IS THE CASE? Why is this not mentioned in Medical School? Why is it not mentioned in nursing and why does your doctor and surgeon continue to offer surgical procedures that do not address the reason why the veins are bulging in the first place?

Could Inclined Bed Therapy prevent many more circulation related medical problems and even reverse many of them preventing the unnecessary amputations and loss of life through gangrene and infections that we see in our hospitals in the year 2008?

Could tilting the bed prevent urinary tract infections and help to resolve blood pressure problems?

Are you going to ignore this post?

Andrew K Fletcher

[Bored chemist]

"Why is this not mentioned in Medical School? Why is it not mentioned in nursing and why does your doctor and surgeon continue to offer surgical procedures that do not address the reason why the veins are bulging in the first place?"
IS it in the mainstream medical literature? If not then you can hardly blame them for not knowing about it.
Is there a proper double blind study?
If not then they might get accused of "quackery", which, together with the threat of being sued might put a lot of them off mentioning it.