Heat waves age your body as smoking or drinking, 15-year-old studies

Do you want to live on a sunny beach after retirement? Think again.

Repeated exposure to heat waves ages the human body against speeds comparable to smoking cigarettes or drinking heavy drinking, according to research that nearly 25,000 adults in Taiwan followed for 15 years.

The study, published in Nature This week it found that for each extra 1.3 degrees Celsius of cumulative heat exposure, participants organically outdated with 0.023 to 0.031 years – Roughly 8 to 11 days. Manual workers and residents in the countryside experienced poorer effects, in which outdoor workers showed biological aging of 33 days compared to approximately 9 to 11 days in the general population.

“Although the number itself looks small, over time and in the population, this effect can have meaningful implications in public health,” said Cui Guo, the environmental epidemiologist at the University of Hong Kong who led the research, said Nature.

The findings represent the first extensive assessment of how persistent exposure to heat influences the aging process at a cellular level. Previous studies were mainly focused on immediate heat-related deaths, but this investigation reveals damage that is accumulated in the short term in the short term, not necessarily in the short term, but still harmful to lifetime.

How heat you slowly kill

Before you understand this research, it is important to remember that there are at least two types of ‘ages’ to consider: chronological age (how much time you live) and biological age (does your body behave better or worse than your chronological age?).

So, let’s say you are a rock star who leads a life of sex, drugs and rock and roll. Your chronological age is 30 years, but you may have a biological age of 45 years because you can’t do the things that a healthy 30-year-old can say, run 30 minutes, breath enough oxygen, and so on.

Researchers calculated the biological age with the help of blood pressure values, inflammatory markers and reviews of liver, lung and kidney function. When the biological age exceeds the chronological age, this signals faster physical decline and a higher risk of diseases.

The study showed that heat damages the body by multiple paths. Temperature data showed that telomeren – protective caps on chromosomes – provided with exposure to heat. An increase in the daily average air temperature (approximately 9.5 to 10.8 ° C) was associated with the shortening of telomer ranging from 2.96% for immediate exposure to 6.69% for a period of two weeks.

The liver, lungs and kidneys showed the most pronounced aging effects. The cardiovascular system turned out to be particularly vulnerable, with older participants experienced an increased tension on the left ventricle during heat stress. Animal studies referred to in the study also documented heat -related damage to the intestine and the brain.

Manual employees who spend their days outside showed biological aging about three times larger than the general population under similar exposure to heat. Rural communities, where access to air conditioning is limited, experienced differences in similar differences.

The research team observed some adjustment during the 15-year study period-the aging impact decreased somewhat as the participants adapt to the exposure to heat. But the harmful effects have never completely disappeared. “If exposure to heat wave accumulates for several decades, the health effects will be much greater than we have reported,” Guo noted.

But everything is not lost.

Scientists have already identified various interventions that can delay heat -related aging. Biomarkers coupled with neuro inflammation and oxidative stress and neuron-specific andolase or cortisol levels responded within hours to days when people lower the exposure to heat through cooling strategies.

If you want a less complex cheatsheet to maintain your youth, then water -based was particularly effective, so that the body temperature kept it while retaining cardiovascular fitness. Adequate hydration, combined with external cooling methods such as cool showers and the search for shadow, reduce the internal heat tax.

The timing is also important. Inflammatory markers such as IL-6 and IL-10 adapted within hours after cooling interventions. Kidney function -indicators improved within a few days. But researchers warned that cumulative damage due to years of exposure to heat could be more difficult to turn around.

So maybe you should reconsider Florida or Hawaii as pension options. Alaska can be a healthier place.