Are weather and climate related to human health?

Man is an advanced creature living in nature, and adapting to nature and natural selection affects human survival and reproduction. There is no doubt that changes in weather and climate are closely related to human health.

Huangdi Neijing, a classic of traditional Chinese medicine, said: "People are born on the ground, and their lives hang in the sky." Meteorological factors play the most important role in the continuous gas exchange between human body and external environment. Changes of meteorological factors beyond a certain range (such as extreme cold, humidity, heat, strong solar radiation, etc.). ) will cause imbalance of heat balance in the body and cause many diseases, such as colds, arthritis, neuritis, neuralgia, muscle pain, frostbite and so on. Statistics show that about 40% of deaths occur under abnormal weather conditions.

Weather changes can be divided into periodic changes and non-periodic changes. Periodic change mainly refers to the change of day and night and the change of four seasons. The daily weather change is an aperiodic stimulus, which is caused by autonomic nerve dysfunction, out-of-control regulation and imbalance in the body. Studies show that infants and the elderly are the most sensitive to temperature changes. From infants to adults, the efficiency of the temperature regulation system in the body has increased by about 20 times; Old people can't adapt to the great temperature changes in the aging process. Old people are also prone to diseases of respiratory system and vascular system due to changes in cold and heat. A study on temperature and human health in Japan shows that the mortality rate is the highest when the temperature is lower than 8℃; At 8 ~ 33℃, the number of deaths is the least; When the temperature exceeds 33℃, the mortality rate rises again.

Meteorological-related diseases can be divided into two categories according to the incidence: one is "seasonal diseases" affected by climate, which occur in fixed seasons every year; The other is "meteorological diseases" affected by weather changes, which occur or are occurring under certain weather conditions. From the etiology analysis, some of these "seasonal diseases" and "meteorological diseases" are directly related to meteorological factors, such as heatstroke and frostbite, and meteorological factors are the physical causes of diseases; Others are caused by nonspecific stimulation of meteorological elements, such as asthma, coronary heart disease and arthritis. Meteorological elements are only incentives. For another example, when the air pressure is too low, chronic diseases such as heart disease and mental illness are easy to attack. Some infectious diseases are also related to the weather. For example, Japanese encephalitis is spread by mosquitoes, and the growth and development of mosquitoes are affected by meteorological conditions.

Heaven and man correspond to each other, and it is necessary to know heaven to prevent diseases. China is a country with four distinct seasons. In order to avoid or reduce the harm of severe weather and climate changes to human body, we should pay attention to the changes of weather and climate, understand the meaning of various meteorological indicators and avoid meteorological pathogenic factors.