Extreme weather poses potential threat to heart health, says study
The University of Oslo in Norway's Professor Stefan Agewall, the study's lead author, stated: "Climate change is leading to a rise in the average global temperature but also extreme cold in some regions. More than 70,000 excess deaths occurred across Europe during the summer of 2003 due to intense heatwaves. 2 Cold weather also accounts for excess deaths and hospital admissions. 3,4 Previously studies on the cardiovascular effects of heat and cold mainly used aggregated data, such as daily deaths in a city. The EXHAUSTION project used individual data, enabling us to identify vulnerable subgroups for protective interventions, thereby increasing resilience for future weather events."
The research included 2.28 million adults from five cohort studies conducted in Italy, Germany, the UK, Norway, and Sweden between 1994 and 2010. The proportion of women varied from 36.0% to 54.5%, while the average age ranged from 49.7 to 71.7 years.
Participants with and without cardiovascular disease were included in the study. Death and disease registries, as well as follow-up questionnaires, were used to collect data on mortality and new-onset disease. Daily average air temperatures at participants' residences were collected from local weather stations or estimated using weather station temperature data modelling.
Temperature, cardiovascular problems, and death were studied in all participants as well as subgroups with specific features.
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The use of within-participant comparisons between days in the same month removed the potential confounding effects of participant characteristics and time trends.
The study discovered a higher risk of death from cardiovascular disease in overall and ischemic heart disease in particular, as well as an increased risk of new-onset ischaemic heart disease in cold weather. There was a 19% increase in the risk of death from cardiovascular disease (relative risk [RR] 1.19; 95% confidence interval [CI] 1.04-1.36) and a 22% increase in the risk of death from ischemic heart disease (RR 1.22; 95% CI 1.07-1.38). A temperature drop of roughly 11°C, from 2°C to -9°C, was linked with a 4% increased risk of new-onset ischemic heart disease (RR 1.04; 95% CI: 1.01-1.08).
Professor Agewall said: "The relationships between cold temperatures and deaths were more pronounced in men and people living in neighbourhoods with a low socioeconomic status. The links between cold and new-onset ischaemic heart disease were stronger among women and people older than 65 years," Professor Agewall said.
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-PTC News
