Much is said about the ways in which climate change moves the planet and causes serious damage to the environment? from extreme weather events to the threat of mass wildlife extinction.
But can climate change also affect your physical and mental health? and in amazing ways. The consequences of the greenhouse effect, natural disasters, and a warmer planet range from stress to medication, stress, infections, the immune system, or even the treatment of mental illness.
Here are seven amazing ways that show how climate change is really affecting our bodies:
1. Affects Your Allergies
If you have noticed that your asthma and allergies are getting worse in recent years, it may have to do with the weather. According to research from the World Health Organization, high temperatures make respiratory diseases worse as they increase pollutant levels in the air. Warmer temperatures and higher levels of CO2 also mean more pollen release from plants, causing much more pain and annoyance for people with breathing problems.
2. Increases incidence of some diseases
The higher the temperatures, the greater the risk of flooding and the spread of waterborne diseases. A 2013 flood study across Europe found that as flooding increased, so did the rate of three types of disease: diarrhea, rodent-borne viral or bacterial problems, and vector-borne infections such as mosquitoes, ticks, flies and fleas.
Read also: 10 replacements to make your diet healthier in summer
3. Makes you more vulnerable to stress
Living in a warmer climate is not synonymous with beach fun. You have to work and do a lot of activities even in the high temperatures, and that's not good. United Nations studies show that hot flashes produce stress, with unsustainable spikes in body temperature that make working conditions unbearable and increase the risk of cardiovascular, respiratory and kidney disease. By 2050, the number of people at risk of heat stress will increase by 350 million.
4. Affects drug reaction
A 2013 study found that as climate change diseases emerge, everyone is more likely to take high levels of medication to feel healthy. This increases the dependence on drugs, including antibiotics and painkillers, which causes people to develop resistance to what we have, and we can't produce new ones fast enough to fight disease.
5. It's bad for mental health
Temperature rise is difficult for those with mental health problems. Research shows that extremes in temperature, especially heat, are linked to poor outcomes for those suffering from mental health problems, increasing the incidence of illness and death, aggressive behavior, violence and suicide. In hot flashes, do people who have been diagnosed with a mental illness face higher mortality risks for reasons that are not entirely clear? but they may have to do with the way heat affects well-being.
6. Can change menstrual cycle
The menstrual cycle can be affected by many external influences. If women are exposed to polluted air as teenagers, the risk of having an irregular cycle in adulthood increases. This is because air pollutants affect hormone levels and human metabolism.
7. Increases likelihood of premature birth
For pregnant women the extremes of climate change, from heat spikes to heavy snowfalls, can be worrying. Several studies have found that exposure to extreme temperatures in early pregnancy, especially during the first seven weeks, can significantly increase the rate of premature births.
Read also: Adopt healthier habits and get routine checkups
Health crises due to climate change have already begun to affect some vulnerable populations, as famine, drought, pollution and other serious issues are frequent in countries with less infrastructure. New research is constantly being done to explore the links between these changes and some diseases, as well as possible ways to prevent all this.
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