The Invading Sea
  • News
  • Commentary
  • Multimedia
  • Public opinion
  • About
No Result
View All Result
The Invading Sea
  • News
  • Commentary
  • Multimedia
  • Public opinion
  • About
No Result
View All Result
The Invading Sea
No Result
View All Result

Climate change is linked to worsening brain diseases – new study

With extreme heat related and humidity, our brain struggles to regulate our temperature and begins to malfunction

by Sanjay Sisodiya and Mark Maslin
June 14, 2024
in Commentary
0

By Sanjay Sisodiya and Mark Maslin, UCL

Climate change is making the symptoms of certain brain conditions worse, our new review has found. Conditions that can worsen as temperature and humidity rise include stroke, migraines, meningitis, epilepsy, multiple sclerosis, schizophrenia, Alzheimer’s disease and Parkinson’s.

Our brains are responsible for managing the environmental challenges we face, especially higher temperatures and humidity, for example by triggering sweating and telling us to move out of the sun and into the shade.

Each of the billions of neurons in our brain is like a learning, adapting computer, with many electrically active components. Many of these components work at a different rate depending on the ambient temperature, and are designed to work together within a narrow range of temperatures. Our bodies, and all their components, work well within these limits to which we have adapted over millennia.

Humans evolved in Africa and are generally comfortable between 20˚C to 26˚C (about 68°F to 78.8°F) and 20% to 80% humidity. Many of the components of the brain are, in fact, working close to the top of their temperature ranges, meaning that small increases in temperature or humidity may mean they stop working so well together.

When those environmental conditions move rapidly into unaccustomed ranges, as is happening with extreme temperatures and humidity related to climate change, our brain struggles to regulate our temperature and begins to malfunction.

A worker shields himself from the sun (iStock image)
The symptoms of certain brain conditions can worsen as temperature and humidity rise (iStock image)

Some diseases can already disrupt perspiration, essential to keeping cool, or our awareness of being too hot. Some drugs used to treat neurological and psychiatric conditions further complicate the problem by compromising the body’s ability to react – reducing sweating or disturbing the temperature-regulating machinery in our brain.

These effects are made worse by heat waves. For example, heat waves disturb sleep, and disturbed sleep makes conditions such as epilepsy worse. Heat waves can make faulty wiring in the brain work even less well, which is why symptoms in people with multiple sclerosis can get worse in the heat. And higher temperatures can make the blood thicker and more prone to clot due to dehydration during heat waves, leading to strokes.

So it is clear that climate change will affect many people with neurological diseases, often in many different ways. With rising temperatures, admissions to hospital for dementia are more common. Seizure control can deteriorate in epilepsy, symptoms worsen in multiple sclerosis and the incidence of stroke rises, with more stroke-related deaths. Many common and serious psychiatric conditions, such as schizophrenia, are also worsened and their hospital admission rates rise.

In the 2003 European heatwave, around 20% of the excess deaths were of people with neurological conditions.

Unseasonal local temperature extremes, larger than usual temperature fluctuations across the day, and adverse weather events, like heat waves, storms and floods, can all worsen neurological conditions. These consequences are further complicated by particular circumstances. The heating effect of city environments and lack of green spaces, for example, can amplify the harms of a heatwave on neurological and psychiatric diseases.

The global scale of those with neurological and psychiatric conditions that could be adversely affected by climate change is huge. About 60 million people have epilepsy worldwide. Globally, about 55 million people have dementia, with over 60% living in low- and middle-income countries. As the world’s population ages, these numbers are projected to increase to over 150 million by 2050. Stroke is the second-leading cause of death and a leading cause of disability worldwide.

Offering help

The broader need to tackle climate change itself is clear. Mitigation measures led by governments with international coordination are needed now. But it will be years before serious efforts start to make a real difference. In the meantime, we can help people with neurological diseases by providing tailored information about the risks of adverse weather events and temperature extremes.

The sun over Key West (Yinan Chen, Public Domain, via Wikimedia Commons)
With extreme temperatures and humidity related to climate change, our brain struggles to regulate our temperature and begins to malfunction. (Yinan Chen, Public Domain, via Wikimedia Commons)

Doctors and public health experts can explain how to reduce those risks. We can adapt local weather-health alert systems to neurological diseases. We can also work with those affected, their families and carers, to ensure weather-health alerts and responses make sense for affected communities and can be implemented.

Unless we start addressing climate change as part of neurological care, the benefits of scientific advances being made are at risk of being lost. Perhaps most importantly, neurological diseases offer insights into what could happen to the healthy brain pushed beyond evolutionarily derived boundaries and the behavioural capacity to adapt.

This possibility grows increasingly likely as we continue to fail to tackle climate change. To continue to live the lives we want, we should pay more attention to the sensation that it is getting too hot and act against climate change. We depend on our brains: Climate change is bad for them.The Conversation

Sanjay Sisodiya is a professor of neurology and Mark Maslin is a professor of natural sciences, both at UCL.

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Sign up for The Invading Sea newsletter by visiting here. If you are interested in submitting an opinion piece to The Invading Sea, email Editor Nathan Crabbe at ncrabbe@fau.edu. 

Tags: brain diseasesdementiaepilepsyextreme heatGlobal warminghealthheat waveshumidityneurological carestroke
Previous Post

UF med students: Microplastics are a microscopic menace to Florida and coastal residents

Next Post

Human activity is making it harder for scientists to interpret oceans’ past

Next Post
Human activity is changing the way fossils are preserved in marine environments. (Florida Museum photo by Kristen Grace)

Human activity is making it harder for scientists to interpret oceans’ past

Twitter Facebook Instagram Youtube

About this website

The Invading Sea is a nonpartisan source for news, commentary and educational content about climate change and other environmental issues affecting Florida. The site is managed by Florida Atlantic University’s Center for Environmental Studies in the Charles E. Schmidt College of Science.

 

 

Sign up for The Invading Sea newsletter

Sign up to receive the latest climate change news and commentary in your email inbox by visiting here.

Donate to The Invading Sea

We are seeking continuing support for the website and its staff. Click here to learn more and donate.

Calendar of past posts

June 2024
S M T W T F S
 1
2345678
9101112131415
16171819202122
23242526272829
30  
« May   Jul »

© 2022 The Invading Sea

No Result
View All Result
  • News
  • Commentary
  • Multimedia
  • Public opinion
  • About

© 2022 The Invading Sea

Welcome Back!

Login to your account below

Forgotten Password?

Retrieve your password

Please enter your username or email address to reset your password.

Log In