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Global warming hurts your heart

Soaring temperatures and high ozone levels work together to boost death risks from heart disease and stroke, researchers report.

They believe that global warming - which brings more heat and more ozone - may further increase the number of people who die of cardiovascular events.

"Temperature and ozone are strong factors in cardiovascular mortality during June to September in the United States," noted the study's lead author, Cizao Ren, from the Department of Epidemiology in the School of Medicine at the University of California, Irvine. "Temperature and air pollution combine to affect the health of large populations," he added.

Expected to get worse
Ren expects the problem will get worse as the earth becomes hotter. "Increases in temperature and air pollution will have a strong affect on health," he said.

His team based its findings on data on almost 100 million people living in 95 different areas across the United States from June to September.

These Americans were included in the National Mortality and Air Pollution Study, which tracked links between health and air pollution for the years 1987 to 2000.

Four million deaths from heart attacks or strokes occurred during the study period. Ren's team compared death rates against changes in temperature during one day.

Ozone was a common link, they found.

Ozone tied to heart risk
In fact, the higher the ozone level, the greater the risk of cardiovascular death attributable to high temperatures, Ren's team concluded.

Ozone levels ranged from an average of 36.74 parts per billion to 142.85 parts per billion, while daily temperatures ranged from 68 to around 107 degrees Fahrenheit (20 to around 41.7 degrees Celsius).

When the ozone level was at its lowest, a 10-degree Fahrenheit increase in temperature (about 5.5 degrees Celsius) was associated with about a one percent increase in deaths from heart disease and stroke. However, when the ozone level was at its highest, there was a more than eight percent increase in deaths from heart disease and stroke, Ren's group found.

The findings are published on November 21 in the online edition of the journal Occupational and Environmental Medicine.

Ozone is a pollutant strongly linked to weather conditions, particularly the amount of ultraviolet light in the atmosphere. Ozone is generated by a reaction between airborne nitrogen oxides, volatile organic compounds, and oxygen in sunlight.

Exposure to high levels of ozone can affect the airways and the autonomic nervous system, making people more susceptible to the effects of temperature changes, Ren's team explained.

One expert agreed with the team's conclusions.

Affects mortality
"This paper reinforces what we know - that both temperature and ozone affect health, even to the extent that they affect mortality," said George Thurston, an associate professor of environmental medicine at New York University.

Global warming will increase both temperatures and pollution, Thurston added, because higher temperatures are conducive to the production of ozone. "This will be a growing problem," he said.

For the general public, the study raises questions about pollution and climate change, Thurston said. "The health effects may be even worse than thought," he said. "There are health benefits to reducing climate change."

Cutting back on the use of fossil fuels will help, Thurston said. "Reducing fossil fuel combustion will reduce climate change and pollution," he said. "We have seen the problem, and it's fossil fuel combustion. Now, all we have to do is come up with an alternative," he said. – (HealthDayNews)

Read more:
Global warming will kill
Global warming fuels disease

November 2007

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