Lack of Sunlight Could Lead To Early Death 304
I Don't Believe in Imaginary Property writes "Members of this community may want to venture out of the basement more often, because Dr. Harald Dobnig and his team have found that vitamin D deficiency leads to increased mortality. These results still hold when they take into account such factors as exercise and heart disease. Low vitamin D status has 'other significant negative effects in terms of incidence of cancer, stroke, sudden cardiac death and death of heart failure,' Dr. Dobnig said. The evidence of ill effects from low vitamin D 'is just becoming overwhelming at this point.' Vitamin D3 is usually produced by exposure to the UV-B in sunlight, but in high latitudes, especially in the fall and winter, insufficient UV-B gets through the atmosphere to produce enough vitamin D3, even with hours of exposure. The researchers are recommending that people at risk for deficiency take 800 IU of vitamin D3 daily. Just don't go overboard — as a fat-soluble vitamin, D3 is more capable of causing adverse effects at unnaturally high dosages. The human body tops out at producing about 10,000 IU per day." According to the Wikipedia entry linked above, the D2 (ergocalciferol) version -- available as a vegan product -- works approximately as well to supply humans with their needed vitamin D.
Worse in northern hemisphere (Score:5, Funny)
Re: (Score:2, Interesting)
...so we either go out into the big blue room to avoid dying sooner, but risk getting cancer that could kill us too. I for one would rather bath in the cool non-skin roasting rays of my flat panel monitor and just increase my intake of once a day vitamins!
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Actually, there are two important forms of skin cancer: basal cell carcinoma and malignant melanoma. The differences between these two forms of cancer are so significant as to be "critical knowledge for humans", and yet they tend to be lumped together under "skin cancer".
Basal cell carcinomas are pretty low grade, tend to be very easy to treat, and are not associated with very many mortalitie
Re:Worse in northern hemisphere (Score:5, Interesting)
Most multivitamins do not provide sufficient vitamin D. Heck many calcium and vitamin D supplements do not provide enough, ie. oscal D only provides 500mg calcium and 200 IU vitamin D.
As a physician, I suggest anyone that is not regularly outside take Calcium 600mg with vitamin D 400 IU twice daily. Taking 800 IU of vitamin D daily is the minimum needed to maintain a healthy level without sun exposure. Up to 2000 IU a day is thought to be safe. vitamin D3 is actually superior to D2, although anything is better than not enough. In the winter, I take Caltrate D twice a day (actually I take the generic version from Kroger which is much cheaper but has vitamin D3).
There are some dietary sources of vitamin D but most Americans fall far short of consuming enough to make up for no sun exposure so these recommendations should always be adjusted according to diet and amount of sun exposure.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
As the summary says, the body can produce 10,000 IUs a day, far more than a multivitamin will provide.
Re:Worse in northern hemisphere (Score:5, Funny)
UVB CPF anyone? (Score:5, Informative)
Re:UVB CPF anyone? (Score:5, Funny)
Re:UVB CPF anyone? (Score:5, Funny)
Re:UVB CPF anyone? (Score:5, Funny)
Sunlight (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Sunlight (Score:5, Informative)
Actually all the studies that address "too much" involved sever sunburns in teen years.
There is no peer reviewed study that suggests normal exposure to sun imposes a high mortality.
Yet the press, over-reacting as usual, have scared people out of the sun and created a sunscreen industry overnight by failing to actually read the studies that were done.
Cancer rates caused by sun exposure only show significant rise in direct relation to bad burns. Avoid the bad burns and you are fine.
60 thousand years of human existence can't be discounted overnight.
Go out and play. Get a tan. Drink some coffee. Have some beer with those salty chips. Lets see, did I forget any of the other discredited cancer scares?
Re:Sunlight (Score:5, Informative)
Cancer is only one potential risk. The sun worshipers I've known still are wrinkled way beyond their years.
Re:Sunlight (Score:5, Insightful)
Cancer is only one potential risk. The sun worshipers I've known still are wrinkled way beyond their years.
All things in moderation.
Re:Sunlight (Score:5, Funny)
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Cancer is only one potential risk. The sun worshipers I've known still are wrinkled way beyond their years.
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Re:Sunlight (Score:5, Insightful)
60 thousand years of human existence can't be discounted overnight.
60 thousand years of short lifespans and high mortality rates.
Re:Sunlight (Score:5, Interesting)
I am not sure about 60thousand years - I studied once history of my family and got back to the end of 18th century. The records in this particular part of Europe end or should I say start then.
What I saw is that my grand grand born in XVIII century got married second time and had a kid in late 80ties of his life. He was a simple farm worker. The life span of others were similar. It changed when the area they lived got industrialized - life span of working men went down to 40 around end of XIX and beginning of XX century. It recovers significantly afterwards sign of reaction to bad working conditions (sick worker = not efficient worker). I suppose this varied a lot from place to place and time to time so talking about short lifespan and high mortality rates is not entirely correct.
Re: (Score:2)
But once you made it past that, my guess is you'd live fairly long, maybe not as long as now, but the biblical 70 years (3 score and ten) wouldn't have been far off. The biblical upper limit of 120 years seems to hold even till today.
Re:Sunlight (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Sunlight (Score:5, Informative)
Don't fall for the error in statistics that cause human lifespans to seem short before modern times -- average lifespans were short because of massive infant mortality, not because people who survived to be adults didn't live to old ages.
There's no evidence to suggest people died earlier 5,000 or 50,000 years ago -- and there's strong counter evidence for that during historical periods of the last 3-5k years.
Lifespan (Score:5, Informative)
.
The best way is to look at the median lifespan - the age to which 50% of people reached or to look at life expectancy at age 20. Life expectancy at 20 didn't reach the 60's till the last century. There were certainly some lucky people who survived to age 70 or 80, but that was the exception rather than the rule. However the biggest gains in life expectancy in the modern era weren't because of level 1 trauma centers and ICUs. The big improvements were due to things like public sanitation, improved nutrition, vaccinations, refrigeration, and simple prenatal and antenatal care.
.
Hobbes was right: life in the state of nature is "nasty, brutish and short".
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
You forget one important thing for men - war. Men tended to get sent to wars, which at least evened out the mortality with women and childbirth.
Similarly, since myopia is a hereditary trait, why do you think it wasn't passed down to all of us yet? People that couldn't see got their head bashed in.
How is that different from today?
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There's no evidence to suggest people died earlier 5,000 or 50,000 years ago -- and there's strong counter evidence for that during historical periods of the last 3-5k years.
I'm not sure where you got that information, but in the middle ages it was recorded by the people of the day (especially the tax keepers and clergy) about mortality. It was indeed higher during 1200s to the 1600s mostly due to disease, famine, and violence.
Yes, you could live to be 80+ years of age, but when you are living in your own f
It was crappier (Score:3, Informative)
Actually, we have better statistics than that. Say, from the Egyptians, we have plenty of records left of when someone died. You know, plaques, inscriptions, etc. So you have a somewhat random sample, and the ages at which they died.
So you can sorta plot a gauss curve, albeit one with a massive spike in the first 3 years, due to the infant mortality that you mention. But the more interesting part is what happens when you look past that spike, at the peak of the proper gauss curve. That's basically the age w
Re:Sunlight (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Sunlight (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Sunlight (Score:4, Informative)
Just go outside for 10 minutes every day. It's not that bad.
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The original publication is here [nih.gov]. Honestly I wonder why we did not see any follow up untill now.
In case you like to read: #18565885 [nih.gov], 18424428 [nih.gov] and 17540555 [nih.gov]
(no open access, I'm afraid).
Way ahead of you! (Score:2)
Re:Sunlight (Score:5, Funny)
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Yeah, charbroiled meat. I can't tell you how many times people tell me that eating charbroiled burgers, sausages, whatever, is going to give me cancer... particularly ironic when some of them smoke cigarettes.
don't shoot the messengers (Score:2)
Actually all the studies that address "too much" involved sever sunburns in teen years.
There is no peer reviewed study that suggests normal exposure to sun imposes a high mortality.
Yet the press, over-reacting as usual, have scared people out of the sun and created a sunscreen industry overnight by failing to actually read the studies that were done.
I don't normally defend Big Media, but in this case they were reading press releases from the dermatologists, whom I suspect had previously bought a number pof shares in that industry.
The reporters were acting in good faith on the authority of doctors.
Aside from that, I'm in total agreement.
Sunscreen increases cancer risk (Score:3, Interesting)
At first I heard that "sunscreen increases cancer risk" from an unreliabel source (but it was on the internet, so it had to be true!) but I then did my own searches.
Indeed it seems that there is a /slight/ correlation between sunscreen use. There is no solid explanation as of yet, but there are two basic theories:
Re: (Score:2)
It would be nice to know the proper balance between too much and not enough. Given the fact that too much will cause cancer and an equally alarming rate.
Even if the rate of skin cancer was much higher though, it would still favor greater sun exposure since the cancer that sun exposure makes you vulnerable to is visually detectable while the cancer that sun exposure protects you from is often only detectable by more invasive means. For some reason people seem much more amenable to getting a good visual skin inspection than a camera on a stick up the butt.
That said, as an extremely pale physician (who can burn in bright flourescent light) with a family hi
Re: (Score:2, Interesting)
Before a few hundred years ago almost everyone was outside all the time. This gave your skin a chance to slowly tan at
Oh no! (Score:2, Funny)
We'll all going to die!
Re:Oh no! (Score:5, Funny)
And the sun causes skin cancer. (Score:3, Funny)
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A technological solution (Score:2, Funny)
Time to add another UV tube to my growing collection of case mods.
Clearly wrong (Score:5, Funny)
I should like, totally do science for a living.
that's the beauty of the natural world (Score:5, Funny)
scientists try to scare us about global warming, but nature has a way to balance things out, we don't have to do anything to fight global warming:
with hotter temperatures, vampires get more sun, thus dying off. with less vampires to prey on pirates, pirate numbers explode, thus lowering global temperatures [venganza.org]. with global temperatures down, vampires get less sun, rebound in population, and begin keeping piurate populations in check again
see the beauty and wonder of the natural world?
Can't spell Napster without "arrr" (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Well, it was a prediction. Just because the event didn't happen doesn't mean their theory is incorrect. Nature has a way of regulating things that Pastafarinists cannot predict.
Re:Clearly wrong (Score:5, Funny)
This may shock you:
vampires are dead!
Vitamin D and auto-immune diseases (Score:3, Informative)
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I can understand why MS patients lack vitamin D, but it may be BECAUSE they have MS tht they have less vitamin D.
As George Carlin would have said:
This just in... (Score:5, Funny)
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Milk as subsitute? (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Milk as subsitute? (Score:5, Funny)
Crash course in Vitamin D (Score:5, Informative)
Vitamin D is produced by the skin in response to certain wavelengths of ultraviolet light, and as such is not a true vitamin (since vitamins are substances we can't naturally produce -- it's a hormone). Vitamin D is also found in certain fats (e.g. cod-liver oil).
This basic form of Vitamin D gets processed by the liver into an second form (25-hydroxyvitamin D3), and then by the kidneys into the active form 1,25-dihydroxyvitamin D3, which tells your body how much calcium to draw out of your food. If you don't have enough calcium in your diet, but enough Vitamin D, the body can even draw the calcium out of your bones. Calcium is also required for the correct transmission of brain signals, so too little vitamin D can also lead to seizures.
To veer back to the OP's question: whether the synthetic vitamin D additive to milk products (as opposed to the vitamin D we used to create in foods in the 1920's and 1930's using mecury lamp ultraviolet radiation) is Vitamin D or Vitamin D3 is pretty much irrelevant for our body, but I believe it is the latter, yes.
Aside: Did you know we can cure cancer with Vitamin D? Sadly, the dosis required is lethal to humans... they're working on it.
Re:Crash course in Vitamin D (Score:5, Interesting)
I started taking fish oil (containing both vitamin A and D -- they work together) and immediately reduced my pain levels. Since then I have tried a combination of mostly synthetic D + fish oil (did not work as well, yet got the symptoms of over consumption) and eventually found the lowest level that took away all pain -- about 1,500 IU per day or about double what the article suggests.
In addition to the risk factor we geeks share for being outside less than average, vitamin D absorption declines with age and the average slashgeek seems to be in their forties or fifties.
Increasing my intake of vitamin D has saved my life, and especially the quality of my life. Frankly, I'm surprised the medical profession let this information out.
And now back to the vampire and sunburn jokes...
Re: (Score:2)
You can also cure AIDS with bleach. I still haven't seen anyone line up for the IV drip yet, though.
For some definition of cure... (Score:2)
"the therapy was an absolute success, the patient however didn't make it" :D
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Vitamin D is produced by the skin in response to certain wavelengths of ultraviolet light, and as such is not a true vitamin (since vitamins are substances we can't naturally produce -- it's a hormone).
What's your take on vitamin K (which "we" produce through our intestinal flora)? Izzat not a "true" vitamin either? Just curious, since I figured it stood for vital amine, not for "can't be produced by us"... that would sortof make a lot of other things vitamins (salt, for starters).
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You could say the same for a bullet...
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Only if the cow doesn't live in a basement as well.
But more seriously, lots of milk brands add vitamin D to their product.
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I don't think I've ever seen milk with vitamin D. Not that I've looked for it or anything. Why would they add it? Or maybe Australia is sunny enough that nobody worries about it?
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Here is an article [accessmylibrary.com] that talks about Vit D malnutrian in Australia.
They and New Zealand do not fortify milk, butter, etc.
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Milk doesn't provide enough to make a significant contribution. In the US, almost all milk sold commercially has been fortified with 400 IU of D3 per quart.
Your skin will make up to 10,000 IU per day, *if* you get 10-15 minutes of direct sunlight. Your body's ability to do that diminishes with age.
In April, my doctor had me take a 25-hydroxy D3 test (which Blue Cross refused to pay for, BTW), and found that my level was 19.5 ng/mL. Recent studies show that 32 ng/mL is a minimum threshold for good health
Milk is not a rich source of vitamin D... (Score:2)
or elemental calcium unless it is artificially fortified.
However, in the US at least milk is a great source of antibiotics, bacteria (from puss) and all manner of hormones that the cows are regularly pumped with.
Now, enjoy your cereal and coffee.
By the way, vitamin D is not "found in UV light", it is produced by the human cells when exposed to UV light.
Bullshit (Score:2, Insightful)
There's plenty enough light coming through even in winter. It's just that you usually don't really get exposed to much of it while sitting in a frickin' cubicle during the decidedly short days in winter.
I do not trust studies that tell me I have to take stuff to be healthy. Going out an hour a day is enough to produce enough vitamin D. We need so little of it to properly function. The true problem lies in the fact that we just are either too lazy to get out or have built our society around a schedule that d
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
We sometimes have entire months here in Ireland with little direct sunshine (I think last year some places had an entire 80 day block with rain each day, and that was in the lousy summer we had last year).
In any case, it's not a matter of the amount of light in winter. It is to do with UVB rays, and these don't reach us in the winter due to the sun being low in the horizon and refraction from the rays passing through more atmosphere. Not only that, but even past the height of winter, these rays only reach u
Re: (Score:2)
Going out for an hour a day in the summer yes, but in the winter, UVB is rarefied at higher latitudes. UVB availability has little to do with how much visible light there is. There can be tons of UVB and very little visible (cloudy day in the middle of summer) and tons of visible, but practically no UVB (clear blue day in December).
Re:Bullshit (Score:5, Funny)
But we don't wants to, Master. It burnss us. Don't make uss go away from preciouss...
*huggles his monitor*
Confounding (Score:3, Insightful)
Makes sense (Score:2, Interesting)
If your vitamin D level gets down during winter and you catch a rainy summer, you're doomed!
decisions decisions (Score:3, Funny)
Skin cancer vs. lung cancer (Score:3, Funny)
I always stand in the sun when I smoke. Do I break even?
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I always stand in the sun when I smoke. Do I break even?
Increased mortality (Score:2, Funny)
Last I checked the mortality rate was 100%
Careful with too much Vit D (Score:5, Informative)
Disclaimer: IAAJD (I am a junior doctor) but this is NOT medical advice. Please consult your physician for your specific situation.
Vitamin D supplements come in two forms: ergocalciferol and cholecalciferol. Studies suggest that cholecalciferol (vitamin D3) increases serum 25-hydroxyvitamin D (25-OH-D) more efficiently than does ergocalciferol (vitamin D2). Milk in the United States has been fortified with vitamin D3 (the natural form made through sunlight) since the 1940. This was mandated and reduced the incidence rate of juvenile rickets by 85% in the United States.
Calcitriol is the most active metabolite of vitamin D. It can frequently cause hypercalcemia and/or hypercalciuria, necessitating close monitoring and adjustment of calcium intake and calcitriol dose. Therefore, it isn't recommended that calcitriol be given for vitamin D supplementation in osteoporosis. However, calcitriol or other vitamin D analogs are an important component of therapy for secondary hyperparathyroidism in chronic kidney disease.
Now to the meat and potatoes of this post. The intake at which the dose of vitamin D becomes toxic is not clear. In 1997, the National Academy of Sciences defined the Safe Upper Limit for vitamin D as 2000 IU/day. Newer data however indicate that higher doses are safe at least over a several-month period. Doses as high as 10,000 IU per day for up to five months were not associated with toxicity. It is important to inquire about additional dietary supplements (some of which contain vitamin D) that patients may be taking before prescribing extra vitamin D. Excessive vitamin D, especially combined with calcium supplementation may cause hypercalcemia, hypercalciuria, and kidney stones.
So be careful and only take the amounts listed on your supplement bottles and inquire with your doctor before starting anything. We have a mentality here in the United States that more is better. When it comes to the human body moderation is key.
As a side note, I also don't really understand the significance of Vitamin D's fat solubility making it any more or less dangerous in higher dosages.
Fat soluble vs. water soluble (Score:4, Informative)
Disclaimer: I'm not even a little bit of a doctor, so this might be completely wrong or misremembered...
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OP is correct. fat soluble vitamins such as A, E are stored in cells and can be very toxic. water soluble vitamins, although easily flushed from the body, can still cause several diseases. there is no significant difference in how easy or difficult a vitamin builds up concentration. it comes down to the bodies ability to metabolize substances.
there are far tighter levels on water soluble vitamin overdose levels than fat soluble. it also logically follows that fatter people can take more into their cells tha
Excess Vitamin C can be peed out, Vitamin D *not*. (Score:4, Interesting)
The hydrophilic substances will happily circulate in the blood stream and excess will be flushed out by the kidneys. That's why, when you read closely the composition of most vitamin supplements, they advertise quantities as stupidly excessive as 3'000% the daily recommendation or Vitamin C (which is hydrophilic). Most of the excess will simply get peed out.
Lipophilic substances, if not handled properly (binds to blood transporter - like albumin or substance specific transporter - and processed in liver - which will convert them into soluble substances) tend to accumulate wherever there's fat :
skin, nerves, CNS, also in organs : inside the liver, inside the kidney (but get stuck in the basal membrane instead of getting flushed out), etc...
The fact that Vitamin D seem to be tolerated at high concentration despite being rather hydrophobic is probably due to the fact that this is a naturally occurring substance and the body has ways to deal with it anyway.
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As a side note, I also don't really understand the significance of Vitamin D's fat solubility making it any more or less dangerous in higher dosages.
I have a guess why that might be true. Anything dissolved in fat is pretty much inactive so long as it remains stored there. When you lose weight your body breaks down and consumes your fat reserves - any fat-soluble stuff stored there generally gets dumped out into the bloodstream. If you continue vitamin D intake while fat breakdown dumps stored vitamin D int
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I'm the OP.
There are several reasons to repeat the study. The issue in the 1940's was rickets but today we're seeing an increasing number of diseases such as "cancer, stroke, sudden cardiac death and death of heart failure" with Vitamin D playing a factor. We would be arrogant as doctors to assume we know everything so this deserves further investigation. Furthermore, the ill effects of years of media scare stories of the sun's "harmful rays" has lead people to put on sunscreen when they reluctantly go out.
Minor disagreement (Score:2)
"Children, though, as also being seen with increasingly low levels of Vitamin D--probably having a lot to do with parents insisting children not play outside due to safety issues"
I would wager that videogames and TV are the primary reason. Kids just don't play outside as much anymore even in safe areas. It's a shame.
To the death! (Score:2)
You will prise my warm AMD only from my cold dead fingers! How dare anyone suggest I get out more.
Whassat? (Score:5, Funny)
Sun...light?
Now you're just making stuff up!
I used to believe you, Slashdot. But now you're all 'sun' this, and 'outside' that, like all those other nutbags! Screw you guys! Go ahead, go outside, see if I care! Maybe you'll get eaten by one of those 'wild animal' things you people are always going on about. Like a..uh..what was it...beer? Bar? Oh, right... A bear! Maybe you'll get eaten by a bear! It'd serve you right!
This post was brought to you by the latter hours of a horrible caffeine bender which failed to see anything accomplished. Enjoy!
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Huh?
Are you guys talking about the really big room with the blue ceiling?
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I'm told this study means nothing (Score:4, Funny)
Err, wait that was my DM...
Still, he does play a Cleric.
Vitamin D deficiency leads to increased mortality? (Score:2)
That's odd, I was always under the impression that the mortality rate was 100%.
Good news, everyone! (Score:2)
So programmers will be dying younger, because they don't get enough sunlight.
And there will be fewer to begin with, because 20% fewer students are pursuing IT-related degrees.
Yet demand is going up. Therefore: More money for those intrepid few of us who survive!
Perfect world domination plan (Score:2)
Doesn't bother me, I'm white. (Score:3, Funny)
Drink yo milk! (Score:2)
This is why milk is fortefied with vitamin D. 1 cup of milk has 45% of your RDI. 1 bowl of cereal / day is all you need.
sunlight MEANS death where i live (Score:3, Interesting)
in antalya, mediterranean coast, southwestern turkey, it gets 40 degrees celsius in shadow, and 99% humid in the summer.
It's a problem? (Score:3, Interesting)
That is why you need to drink your milk, children.
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and outside one may get onto these creatures, they call them women, strangely they all wear clothes and behave differently than in documentaries that we like to watch between coding sessions.
Re:first post (Score:4, Funny)
Re:In other news: (Score:5, Funny)
Seriously, you only have to go to northern sweden/norway to see this in action. You'll find a combination of zombies and nutcases!
OK wise guy... now explain California!
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"OK wise guy... now explain California!"
Easy. It's even more dangerous to mix basement-dwelling troglodytes with sunshine-loving surface dwellers. They may not interact much, but when they do all sorts of horrible side-effects can occur (read George Wells' "The Time Machine" for examples).