Two white men in their 60s live hundreds of miles away from each other, one in Arizona and the other in Washington. They are the same age and have the same socio-economic background. They also have similar habits and have roughly the same physical shape. But the man in Arizona ages faster than the man in Washington, which is 14 months of rapid aging. Men do not smoke or drink. Both exercise regularly. So why is the theme of living in the Southwest desert at the cellular level at the cellular level at the cellular level?
A study published in the journal Science Advances shows that extreme calories age millions of Americans faster than their peers in cooler climates. The researchers found that the effects of long-term exposure to high temperatures are comparable to the effects of habitual smoking on cellular aging.
As global average temperatures continue to rise due to the greenhouse gas effects caused by burning fossil fuels, the wider surroundings of the global population are being exposed to extreme heat, and it has killed more than 21,000 Americans since 1999. In 2023, 2023, Phoenix, Arizona, some of the people in the study conducted a 31-day analysis here, and a 31-day analysis here. That year was the warmest year in the global record, and the record quickly surpassed in 2024.
Exposure to above-average calories can have severe short-term and long-term health effects. People may experience heat-related diseases such as dehydration and fainting, or maintaining stroke – the most severe heat-related diseases that can lead to death. Elderly and young children are particularly susceptible to these effects because they have difficulty adjusting their body temperature or maintaining a stable internal body temperature. Over a few months and years, heat exposure can exacerbate existing chronic diseases such as kidney and cardiovascular diseases and increase a person's risk of mental health problems and dementia.
Eun Young Choi, a postdoctoral geriatric researcher at the University of Southern California’s Leonard Davis School of Geriatrics, and lead author of the study, wanted to identify long-term health consequences that could lead to extreme heat exposure at the cellular level, especially among people close to the 1960s. She is particularly interested in the “non-clinical manifestations” of calorie exposure, which means she hopes to capture how the calorie affects noAppear in the emergency room and suffers from a heat-related illness or stroke. Her assumption is that no matter who can sense it keenly, the calories disappear in overall health.
To test the theory, Choi analyzed blood samples from more than 3,600 people aged 56 and over who participated in a large national health and retirement study. These participants had blood tests in 2016 or 2017. They divided participants into population groups based on race, socioeconomic status, exercise habits, and other factors, and then used a series of biological tests to compare people in these groups that determined how fast a person's cellular ageing.
“With long-term exposure to heat – one year and six years – we see the heat with [cellular] Cui said that at different biological tests, people living in places with temperatures up to 90 degrees or above in a year, or those above 90 degrees F, have up to 14 months compared to those living in areas with temperatures below or above 90 degrees or above for less than 10 days.
“This study is one of the earliest empirical assessments that long-term exposure to calorie is directly related to the acceleration of the aging process,” said Vivek Shandas, a professor at Portland State University. “This adds to existing work, which may be due to the possible consequence of long-term and periodic calorie exposure in older people. ”
Two previous studies found that people exposed to calorie age were exposed to calories more quickly, and studies of mice always indicated hot age, but Cui’s study was the first nationally representative study to reach this link. The size and diversity of her subject library helps to overwhelm many of the factors that usually do this data. Choi found no significant differences between demographics—which suggests that calories can damage cells in the older adults in general.
What Choi doesn't state, however, is that people adapt to all the ways in which they protect themselves from heat. Some people, especially wealthier Americans, may blast air conditioners around the clock.
Previous studies have shown that above-average temperatures do not affect all populations equally. Extreme heat is particularly dangerous to people living in urban areas, who live with mottled tree coverings and lots of concrete. These areas are known as urban heat islands in places like New York City and Chicago, and they can be 7 degrees higher than the surrounding rural areas. Urban heat islands tend to fit in with communities where racist zoning practices restrict non-white communities, one of the reasons a common person of color is exposed to more severe calories in urban areas than the average non-Hispanic white. These people are unlikely to afford air conditioning.
“We know that some demographics, such as those working outside, populations that are not popular, living in urban heat islands, incarcerated populations and low-income residents often have longer exposure to extreme heat (for decades),” Shandas said. “So we may draw on these findings to show that some populations need to pay more attention and care as we see forecasts of heat waves.”
Cui hopes future research will continue to tease these differences, especially since by 2040, one in five Americans will be over 65 or older — from 1 in 2000’s 8 points. “I don't think the underlying biology is significantly different,” she said. “We want to see significant effects of calories in young people. And we do need to track people from birth to older people to see if these effects can be reversible.”
Originally published by Grist, the story is part of Climate Now, a global news collaboration that enhances the reporting of climate stories.
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