Climate change is shaking the foundations of global health. “It has the potential to undermine decades of progress in global health,” the World Health Organization strongly warns. Science has already reported its influence, through air pollution, on the development of cancer, respiratory ailments and cardiovascular diseases. Or how it causes more and more deaths due to extreme weather events, such as heat waves or floods. Now, a scientific review carried out by researchers from the Hospital Clínic of Barcelona and the IDIBAPS also delves into its effects on mental health and detects a relationship between rising temperatures and the risk of suicide: the study, published in the journal World Psychiatry estimates that global warming has increased deaths by suicide by 5%. The research also finds that long-term exposure to some contaminants and solvents, present in paints or varnishes, is also linked to a higher incidence of dementia and cognitive impairment.
With all its tentacles, from pollution to rising temperatures, global warming sickens the planet and those who live on it. It damages physical health, but also the mental spectrum. An example: climate change unleashes increasingly frequent extreme phenomena, such as heat waves or large storms, which cause damage to physical health and thousands of deaths each year. But this same phenomenon can also generate traumatic effects in the exposed population or break the key pillars for good mental health, such as economic stability or food security.
The impact of climate change on mental health is so “worrying,” the authors reflect in the article, that among young people terms have begun to be coined that refer to its imprint. Ecoanxiety, for example, which identifies that emotion associated with a changing and uncertain environment; or ecological mourning, which names the pain of ecological loss.
The association is very robust. But it must be differentiated from being the cause. People do not commit suicide because of the increase in temperature, but because they are very unwell
Eduard Vieta, head of the Psychiatry and Psychology Service at the Clínic
In this scientific review, the authors have attempted to organize the level of evidence in the scientific literature on the impact of climate change on mental health. They analyzed 285 studies from around the globe and, although they did not find any direct cause-effect, they did find strong associations and repeating patterns. “Climate change and pollution, which is the cause of climate change, have a significant impact on mental health,” says Raduà, director of the Image Group of disorders related to mood and anxiety at IDIBAPS and author of the new study.
One of the findings with “great clinical relevance,” they assessed, is the link between rising temperatures and mortality from suicide. “The rise in temperature would have increased suicide rates by 5%. We are talking about very large effects. The associations are not very big on their own, but since they affect the entire planet, they have a great impact,” reflects Raduà.
The authors admit that the biological mechanisms that explain this link “remain unknown and probably involve complex multifactorial relationships.” But they venture some of the hypotheses that are on the table: “Some evidence suggests that exposure to high temperatures can directly affect brain function, with alterations in adequate oxygenation and the permeability of the blood-brain barrier. Other studies imply alterations in neurotransmitters or suggest that higher temperatures can directly worsen mood, making people feel more irritable and stressed, and amplifying the symptoms of mental disorders,” they report in the scientific article.
Eduard Vieta, head of the Psychiatry and Psychology Service at the Clínic and head of the Bipolar and Depressive Disorders Group at IDIBAPS, clarifies that global warming is “a factor that adds” to the complexity behind a death by suicide, but Remember that this phenomenon is multi-causal and in 90% of cases, there is an underlying mental health illness. “The association is very robust. But it must be differentiated from being the cause. People do not commit suicide because of the increase in temperature, but because they are very unwell. The increase in temperature is generating emotional discomfort and it is like a drop that you add to a glass that is already full,” he explains. The authors saw that peaks of extreme temperatures (especially due to heat) are when this increase in suicide deaths is seen the most.
Regarding the effects of air pollution, the researchers also found another “convincing” association linked to long-term exposure to solvents. These products (such as toluene, acetone, xylene or ethyl acetate, among others) are used in paints and cleaning compounds. “They are directly toxic to many parts of the body, with symptoms ranging from skin irritation, headaches and blurred vision, to loss of consciousness and death,” they noted. Raduà assures that these findings are in line with what they already knew about the toxicity of some products, such as toluene, which has already known effects on the central nervous system.
Increased risk of postpartum depression
Air pollution, a driver of climate change, also has a strong impact on pregnancy. Clínic scientists found that exposure to polluting particles during the second trimester of pregnancy increases the risk of developing postpartum depression. The hypothesis that experts use, although they point out that more studies are needed to confirm it, is that exposure to these particles increases the levels of cortisol, a hormone that also tends to rise during the second and third trimesters of pregnancy naturally and which is associated with the risk of postpartum depression. “Therefore, the interaction of these pollutants with the physiological increase in stress hormones may explain the higher incidence of postpartum depression,” they assess in the article.
Scientists have also reported that exposure to high levels of sulfur dioxide, which arises from fuel combustion in industry, may also raise the risk of relapse in patients with schizophrenia.
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