The dangers of global warming and its impact onour planet has already been said a lot. News on this topic is regularly published in our Telegram news channel. Without a doubt, global warming is a huge problem that affects the entire climate. But what about the effects of this phenomenon on human health? At first glance, it seems that there is no connection here and cannot be. But this is not at all true. Recently, a group of researchers from the United States found out how global warming affects human health. And, according to them, their discovery is “this is only the beginning”, because global warming can have a negative impact far more than we thought.
How does global warming affect our health?
According to Sciencedaily, a team of scientistsfrom the University of Colorado found a link between recent cases of chronic kidney disease among agricultural workers and global warming. Lead author of the study, MD Cecilia Sorensen and her colleagues said that chronic kidney disease (CKD) of unknown origin is currently the second leading cause of death in Nicaragua and El Salvador. The death toll from this disease has increased by 83% in Guatemala over the past decade. The disease occurs in other regions, such as the southern United States.
The exact cause of the disease, which is oftenaffects agricultural workers in hot climates, remained unknown. But its course does not correspond to a typical chronic kidney disease, which is usually associated with diabetes and hypertension. What we know for sure is that CKD is primarily associated with heat exposure and dehydration. For example, sugar cane plantation workers in Central America work all day in the forty-degree heat.
Moreover, the authors conducted a large-scalea study in which a direct relationship was found between an increase in reported cases of chronic kidney disease and an increase in ambient temperature. In regions with hotter climates, the number of such cases is much higher than in colder latitudes. Moreover, the increase in temperature associated with global warming “expands” the boundaries of these zones, which means that an increasing number of people are at risk.
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But that is not all. Throughout the world over the past few years, the number of cases of human infection with Lyme disease has significantly increased in regions in which it has not previously occurred. This, according to experts, is due to the fact that winters have become much warmer and the colder climate, which used to kill most of the ticks, no longer does them any harm. So their population is increasing. The same applies to mosquito vectors of dengue fever, Zika virus and malaria. They also began to appear in the “new” regions of the globe.
Moreover, experts also do not exclude thatThe fact that global warming and the associated increase in air temperature has a negative effect on other human organs and systems. In particular, respiratory and cardiovascular. But to confirm this hypothesis, "further research is required."