What Kind of Effect Does Climate Change Have on Our Bodies?

Climate change has a serious effect on both the environment and human health because obviously, increases in temperature disrupt the balance of the climate system, and the constant recurring disasters are proving to be more and more challenging for bodies and health. Climate change has far-reaching possibilities of health effects on human bodies that do not stop at the doors of our physical well-being but also affect our mental and emotional well-being. Here follows a far more detailed outlook on the nature of climate change and its consequences on human beings:

linked to Heat-Related Health Problems:

One of the most direct consequences of climate change to the physical well-being of persons is that it increases the factors related to heat. The trajectory of climate change is as pronounced as the direct physical manifestations. The international regional survey over the past few years along with heat waves has noted evidence of increasing temperature with extreme heat conditions that hazards will directly harm human health. The human body needs a fine balance of temperature to work with regular supply systems designed by nature, and prolonged heating produces heat-induced problems such as:

Heat Exhaustion and Heatstroke

Continuous exposure to certain high temperatures overburden the human body’s essential cooling system, producing symptoms such as dehydration, dizziness, nausea, and confusion. If not addressed accordingly, this apparently harmless cocktail can continue into heatstroke-a life-threatening situation that, unfortunately, fails both renal status and leads to death.

Dehydration

High temperatures cause the body to sweat more, resulting in potentially severe fluid loss. Severe dehydration inhibits proper bodily functions, leading to effects such as kidney dysfunction, dizziness, fatigue, weakness, or potentially more serious complications.

Cardiovascular Strain

The heart has to work harder during extreme heat to maintain body temperature, which puts additional stress on the heart and increases the risk of heart attacks or any other major cardiovascular event for preconditioned hearts.

Above all, the most susceptible categories of individuals during the hot months include the elderly, children, chronic conditions, and those in areas where either cooling systems are absent or health care is inaccessible.

Respiratory Problems and Air Quality

Climate Change-Related Problems with Air Quality and Respiratory Disease:
Air pollution causes a major impact on respiratory health and is made worse by climate change. High-temperature and altered weather patterns have ratcheted up the levels of ozone, particulate matter, and volatile organic compounds which increased urban pollution, thereby impacting human health in various ways:

Partial aggravation of already existing respiratory diseases:

Inhalation of air pollutants can worsen the state of asthma, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), and bronchitis. This fine particulate matter (PM2.5) enters the lungs and causes inflammation leading to difficulty in true aspiration and long-term lung injury.

Increased cases of respiratory infections

The air quality can impair the functioning of the immune system, predisposing the body to respiratory tract infections, including pneumonia and bronchitis. This is more serious among the young, elderly, and the immunocompromised.

Permanent damage to the lungs

Prolonged exposure to any asphyxiant-inducing pollutants from urban settings is a risk factor for chronic lung diseases, which could, in turn, have the long-term effect of raising the odds that unsuspecting people will develop lung cancer with some effects of climate change-induced pollution featuring high-pressure from high temperatures.

Spread of Vector-borne Diseases

Warming has been bedecking the habits and habitats of many vectors of diseases like mosquitoes, ticks, and fleas. With temperature increase and change in rain precipitations, these pests are moving into new geographical areas improving the range of distribution for the diseases they carry. Some human health consequences include:

Malaria: An increase in temperature and precipitation patterns in the context of changing climate provides prime breeding grounds for mosquitoes that carry malaria parasites. Since the populations of these mosquitoes have started travelling to newer territories, malaria has become very much on the increase in tropical and subtropical regions.

Dengue fever and Zika virus: The two most prominent representatives of these vector-borne diseases spread through the Aedes mosquito, are progressively rising with changes in climatic conditions. Rising temperatures and changing precipitation patterns are providing better breeding grounds for Aedes mosquitoes and also risk new population groups.

Lyme disease: Warmer temperatures and climate shift are extending the range of ticks that are carriers of Lyme disease. Thus, the population living in the erstwhile unexposed ranges are now at risk of getting the condition and causing severe illnesses when not diagnosed or disturbingly managed.

Food and Water Security

Climate change scenarios are likely, by virtue of their growing significance on the access to food and water, to disturb, thus mitigating the impact of human health on these impairments. Catastrophic weather events such as floods and droughts and heat waves may lead to loss of crops, therefore causing disruption in the food production chain, thus resulting in food shortages.

Effects on Health;

Malnutrition: Because the cost of food is high or very little to be sourced, families will struggle to maintain a balanced diet. Thus, malnutrition is particularly acute among vulnerable groups: children and pregnant women. The fact that malnutrition lowers immunity opens the door to the possibility of falling sick from other diseases.

Water scarcity: Climate change in rainfall patterns and depletion of freshwater sources may cause water scarcity in various parts of the world. The absence of clean water exposes one to chronic dehydration, kidney complications, and threatens health with a heightened incidence of water-borne ailments like cholera, dysentery, and typhoid fever.

Foodborne Illness: High temperatures and humidity favour the growth of harmful pathogens and bacteria in food; this leads to increased incidences of food-borne illness. Resulting in cases of mild to severe symptomatic intestinal problems, dehydration, and occasionally death when food which is not properly handled is consumed.

Mental Health Impacts

Climate change threatens and affects people physically as well as mentally. Increasingly, extreme weather events like hurricanes and floods contribute to psychological distress, rather than being a matter of thinking about the uncertain future. The various expressions of mental health impacts induced by climate change are:
Climate anxiety: Heightened awareness of climate change and its expected impact on the future has increased anxiety in some people-especially among younger generations-whose overwhelming feelings of despair and helplessness have hardly gotten any easier. Otherwise known as eco-anxiety, this phenomenon is characterized by a constant sense of dread about our planet and the legacy we leave for coming generations.
Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD): People who have experienced climate change-induced natural disasters are at high risk of developing PTSD. The trauma from these could leave emotional scars that last a lifetime; an onslaught of symptoms such as nightmares, flashbacks, and depression may then ensue.
Depression and anxiety: Highly emotional and disturbing and refurbishment quakes raise temporary daunting feelings of doom, darkness, or melancholy in humans. Moreover, climate-induced displacement also carries community loss of quality of life, which manifests in bizarre constructs of language like feelings of isolation, hopelessness, and despair.

Displacement and Health Risks

While climate change and its ramifications rank among the major drivers of displacement, each destabilizing event or other stressors may cause widespread displacement. Increasing sea levels, extreme weather events and changing ecosystems force inhabitants out of their homes into safer areas.
Risks to health in the aftermath of displacement include:

Overcrowding and lack Sanitation

Crowding and Health Risks by Unsanitary Conditions-Rapid spread of infectious diseases that arise in derelict or improvised camps and temporary shelters is mostly due to crowding and barren unsanitary facilities. This spread includes cholera, tuberculosis, and respiratory infections.

Limited Access to Healthcare

Restricted access to health services-Displaced persons can be severely limited in seeking healthcare, which aggravates those conditions already being experienced and effects on the treatment of other conditions. Stress associated with displacement can cause mental health problems.

Increased Vulnerability to Disease

Increased Vulnerance to Disease-Being displaced frequently places persons in situations where they are made vulnerable to diseases by clean water, foods, shelter, and medical care being cut off.

To Sum Up; The broad realms of climate change set the stage for an entirely different outcome in the conglomerate taking shape in the vice of a man-made, social, economic, and public health catastrophe. Whether it be heat-related illnesses and associated respiratory problems, or the spread of communicable diseases and mental health challenges, from all over the world the changing climate already draws its first causal distinctions. Global action to avert climate change, adapt to the threats it poses to health, and erect adaptive barriers to protect at-risk communities, though they may be short term, must have to be taken with startling urgency. Sustaining an investment in good practices, medicine, teamwork, and social awareness can usher in a healthier and more resilient world for all.