Extreme temperatures increase the risk of premature death
Last reviewed: 23.04.2024
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Extreme temperature fluctuations in winter and summer increase the risk of premature death in people suffering from cardiovascular diseases.
Australian scientists have come to this conclusion. Their article can be found on the pages of the journal American Cardiology Association "Cardiovascular Quality and Outcomes".
Specialists from Brisbane for the first time conducted a similar study, whose goal is to establish the relationship between the average daily temperature and life expectancy of a person.
To identify this pattern, experts compared actual early deaths and expected life expectancy of people.
Researchers note that their discovery can carry important information about how the human body reacts to temperature changes, and whether a set of excess weight is associated with this.
As it was revealed earlier, temperature fluctuations can affect blood pressure, cholesterol level, and also change the viscosity of blood.
"The scale that is gaining a tendency to obesity in the modern world and all the problems that flow from there, including diabetes and heart disease, show that the person's sensitivity to temperature changes will only increase," says Dr. Kunrui Huang from the School of Public Health and Queensland University of Health and Biomedical Innovation.
The scientists analyzed the temperature data for the period from 1996 to 2004 in Brisbane. They compared these data with information on mortality, the cause of which were cardiovascular diseases during the same period.
The average temperature in Brisbane in summer is 20.5 degrees Celsius. For the summer period, wet and hot weather is typical, the maximum in summer is 29.2 degrees (1% of the days in a year).
And the winter here is characterized by dry and mild weather conditions, during this period the minimum temperature index is 11.7 degrees (1% of the days per year).
According to scientists, about a million people lost during this period about 72 years of life. The reason for this were temperature jumps, which provoked a sharp deterioration in health and subsequently death.
Also, experts note that the extreme heat lasted longer, the higher the risk of premature death.
According to experts, this is due primarily to the heavy burden on the heart, as well as to the loading of ambulance teams on such days. In this case, low temperatures people with similar diseases suffer much easier, because to avoid trouble in the cold, you need to quickly warm up in a warm room.
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