Heating up heart risk
Global warming may lead to more than just the melting of the polar ice caps and the raising of sea levels. It also has the potential to lead to a greater incidence of heart disease—but also, surprisingly, to offer you an opportunity to reduce your heart-disease risk.
How's that for a contradiction?
To start with, it's harder for your heart to deal with heat.
The European Society of Cardiology had its annual meeting last month, where heart experts called for more focus on this potential problem.
Heat waves in recent years provide a grim picture of what the future may look like. To put it bluntly, there are a certain number of deaths "expected" during any particular time frame. During heat waves, there's a trend for that number to be higher. Researchers believe that extreme heat aggravates heart problems— especially in the elderly.
It seems that hardening of the arteries develops faster with higher temperatures. As temperatures climb, your body sweats to release excess heat, and blood is sent to the skin, where things are cooler. This opens your blood vessels, making your heart rate increase and your blood pressure drop—which can be risky if you're elderly or if you already suffer from heart problems.
One heart specialist commented that there may be a flip side to global warming: Warmer temperatures may make it easier for you to get outside and exercise—a boon to heart health.
We may not be able to individually control global warming, but we can control to some extent how we treat our hearts. But that doesn't mean that you should wait for the temperature of the globe to heat up to balmy temperature levels before you begin exercising—that truly would be an example of using any excuse in the book.
