this post was submitted on 18 Mar 2025
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Heat can age you as much as smoking, a new study finds (www.npr.org)
submitted 1 day ago by MicroWave@lemmy.world to c/health@lemmy.world
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Summary

A new study in Science Advances finds that prolonged heat exposure accelerates aging at the molecular level, similar to smoking and drinking.

Researchers analyzed DNA from 3,600 older adults and found those in hotter areas, like Phoenix, aged 14 months faster than those in cooler places.

Heat-induced "epigenetic aging" increases risks for diseases like dementia and heart problems. Climate change is worsening heat exposure, especially for older adults, further straining health systems.

Scientists aim to study how indoor heat affects health and explore ways to mitigate long-term damage.

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[–] supersquirrel@sopuli.xyz 17 points 1 day ago (4 children)

Places like Phoenix scare me, if the powergrid fails there even for a handful of days during a bad heatwave 10,000+ people could die.

Places like this are NOT prepared, please move if you can you aren't safe even if everyone around you is acting like things are safe.

[–] Zachariah@lemmy.world 15 points 1 day ago

It’s an ideal place to require rooftop solar on every building to protect against grid failure.

[–] Galapagon@sh.itjust.works 14 points 1 day ago

I did move, and everyone always says shit like "Why would you leave?" Water shortages "Oh I want to go there it's so beautiful" so are other places "Have you been to Sedona" yes... It's nothing special "At least it's a dry heat" so is your oven

[–] sunzu2@thebrainbin.org 8 points 1 day ago (2 children)

There is a reason why these places were sparsely populated prior to indsutrit revolution...

Between heat and lack of water, I don't see how these places are viable long term.

Midwest is the long term bet imho

[–] AmbiguousProps@lemmy.today 3 points 23 hours ago

The Midwest will have increasingly bad tornado outbreaks driven by climate change.

[–] supersquirrel@sopuli.xyz 3 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (1 children)

Parts of the midwest but don't make the mistake of thinking being far away from coasts make you safer.

The ocean is a massive heat sink, it stabilizes shocks to a regional climate systems and slows them down with the mass and inertia of water.

Parts of the midwest are great but the narrative that the midwest is lowkey the best place to live during this climate acceleration is hopeful thinking without good evidence.

...but yeah it definitely is a decent place to survive climate change, im not bashing the midwest.

[–] sunzu2@thebrainbin.org 1 points 1 day ago

I don't know any placed better... Good agricultural land and temperate climate.

But yeah nowhere gonna be perfect when food chains collapse

[–] Zetta@mander.xyz -1 points 1 day ago* (last edited 23 hours ago) (2 children)

You are exaggerating. No, the people of Phoenix would not die if the AC went out for two weeks during summer heat. They have thousands of homeless people that do it every year.

Living in Phoenix is significantly safer when looking at natural disaster risk than a significant portion of everywhere else in the country.

[–] supersquirrel@sopuli.xyz 3 points 20 hours ago

No I am not not exaggerating

CONSIDER THIS NIGHTMARE scenario. For four days now, temperatures have soared past 110 degrees. Those able to stay home are cranking their air-conditioning while officials scramble to move the unhoused into cooling centers. Even at night, the sweltering is relentless, thanks to the urban heat island effect: The concrete and brick of this metropolis absorbs the sun’s energy during the day and releases it throughout the evening.

There is no relief, and then suddenly there’s disaster: The grid fails, snatching away the AC that’s staving off mass heat illness. If this scenario were to unfold across Phoenix, according to a recent paper, half of the city’s 1.6 million people would need medical attention. More than 13,000 would die.

https://www.wired.com/story/a-grid-collapse-would-make-a-heat-wave-far-deadlier/

[–] sp3tr4l@lemmy.zip 3 points 20 hours ago

Survey says!

https://www.azfamily.com/2024/08/16/100-phoenix-area-heat-deaths-because-ac-wasnt-working-or-wasnt/

buzzer noise

Wrong answer!

You're doing survivorship bias.

And you're also assuming those homeless people... are the same homeless people, and are not dying outside and being replaced by new homeless people, yet still growing overall in number over time.