A study by University College London researchers reveals that extreme heat and climate change-related disasters worsen neurological diseases and mental health disorders.
They found that environmental factors not only affect the prevalence of these conditions but also increase the risk of hospital admissions, disability, and death.
“In order to work properly, the brain has to be maintained within a relatively narrow temperature range,” Sanjay Sisodiya, a professor at the UCL Queen Square Institute of Neurology who led the research, told Bloomberg.
“If the brain has a disease, then the brain’s ability to thermoregulate is compromised. Take someone with a neurological disease and put them in an extraordinary heat wave, you can see how that could well make their neurological disease worse,” Sisodiya added.
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In their study, researchers examined 332 reports to understand how environmental factors affect 19 neurological conditions with high disease burdens, such as Alzheimer’s, dementia, migraine, stroke, multiple sclerosis, and meningitis.
They also looked at research on depression, anxiety, and schizophrenia, which often coexist with neurological diseases. The findings indicate that weather affects each disease differently, but most conditions tend to have increased prevalence and worsened symptoms due to environmental influences.
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“What scares me most about this scenario is that by 2050, not only will we see an explosion of people with neurological disorders, but it will happen in our 40s and 50s instead of 70s and 80s because our brains are bombarded by different stresses like heat, pollution and microplastics,” said Ikiz, the founder and chair of the International Neuro Climate Working Group, an initiative to promote more research and advocacy around climate change’s threat to the brain.
