IF You are like many people, you find more and more difficult stomach on climate change – literally. A world of warming leads to all kinds of health problems, including an increased risk of cardiovascular diseaseexacerbation of Pulmonary conditions like asthma and mpoc, and Mental health problems including depression and anxiety. Increasingly, climate change is involved in a range of intestine diseases, such as diarrheal diseases, irritable colon syndrome, intestinal infection, etc. While the mechanism behind the increase in pulmonary diseases in a warmer world is more or less direct – the breathing of hot, dirty and soot breathing is not good for the lungs of anyone – the intestinal connection is more nuanced and multifactorial, involving the growth of cultures, contaminated water supplies, drought, thermal waves, malnutrition and microbiome ground. None of this is good for us; All of this can affect any of us. Here's what you need to know about climate connection.
What is the height of the temperatures which directly affect the intestine
The body is an extremely balanced system. We optimally operate at 98.6 ° F; push us to 99 ° F and we are already starting to feel bad. It is not surprising that if the planet manages a fever, we will pay a price. “Higher temperatures can increase stress hormones in the body, which really affects intestinal physiology,” explains Elena Litchman, professor of aquatic ecology at Michigan State University.
The main stress hormone is cortisolwhich is produced by the adrenal gland. Cortisol affects several parts of the body, but can have a particularly powerful impact in the intestine, which is bordered by immune system cells; epithelium cells, which form a barrier between the intestines and the rest of the body; And enteroendocrine cells, which help regulate the hormonal environment of the intestine. All these cells have cortisol receptors, and everyone can become deregulated if cortisol levels are growing too high. Cortisol can also accelerate or slow down the time required for food to be transit through the intestines, which can lead to what is called dysbiosis– or an imbalance in the number, type and distribution of thousands of bacteria, viruses and fungi that make up the microbiome living in the digestive tract.
High temperatures are also known to increase the permeability of the intestinal lining, leading to what is called fled. “Temperature has a direct effect on the intestines,” said Desmond Leddin, professor of medicine at Dalhousie University in Canada. “One of the causes of heat stroke is supposed to relate to intestinal permeability. »»
The fleeing intestine can also allow organisms that make up the intestinal microbiome – which are supposed stay In the intestines – Migrate into the blood circulation and spread the infection. The microbes that remain late, in the meantime, can be completely unbalanced.
“When connections [in the intestinal lining] Become less tight, you can bring more oxygen into the intestine, “explains Litchman.” This can stimulate bacteria or other intestinal microbes which are not necessarily beneficial. »»
The microbiome in you and without you
The composition of organizations residing in the intestines is also affected by climate change by other means. It is not only humans and other animals that have a microbiome; The soil, air and water do it too, and higher ambient temperatures can cause less beneficial microbes, especially listeria,, e. ColiAnd Shigella– To prosper. What is in the external environment is quickly part of your internal.
“The ground is a large source of microbes in the intestine,” explains Litchen. “The microbes are in food, they put themselves on our skin, you can even inhale the microbiome of the soil in the form of dust.”
In the West and in the rest of the developed world, it is less a problem because in these rich countries, people eat processed foods that are still removed from the ground that produced it. In developing countries, often agrarian, this is a different question. “People in these world regions are in narrower contact with environmental microbiomas,” says Litchen.
“There is certainly a exchange scheme in global digestive health,” explains Leddin. “Special concerns are inflammatory intestine diseases – Crohn's disease and ulcerative colitis. Crohn was relatively rare in low -income countries, but now it becomes more and more a problem. ”
Water presents its own concerns. High temperatures can increase the concentration of pathogens in water at the same time as we drink more to cope with heat, increasing exposure to unhealthy insects. “It is essentially a kind of positive feedback,” explains Litchen. In the meantime, if we do not drink enough when it is hot, we can suffer from dehydration, which has its own implications.
“When we are dehydrated, the blood is moved from muscles and intestine to vital organs, in particular the brain and heart,” explains Eamonn Quigley, president of gastrointestinal health at the Houston methodist hospital. “It's not good for the gastrointestinal tract, which is starting to suffer.” Digestive symptoms associated with dehydration include Stomach pain and cramps,, constipationAnd Slowed digestion and absorption of nutrients.
Climate change can also lead to floods, which have a direct help effect in the intestine. As Leddin wrote in a 2024 paper In Advanced hep gastrofloods can contaminate groundwater with Rotavirus,, Cryptosporidium,, CampylobacterAnd Yersinia. This strikes the world in harder development than developed development. In 2004, for example, Bangladesh floods led to 350,000 cases of diarrheal disease. But even in rich countries, there is a real risk. In the United States, 23 million households count on private wells for their water supply – wells that can become easily contaminated during floods.
The role of the regime
As much as everything is what is in your menu that most affects your intestinal health, and climate change plays a big role in what you eat, even if you do not realize it. To start, higher temperatures can cause faster crops. “It seems good,” explains Leddin, “but because they develop faster, they can have a lower nutritional value.”
In addition, as Litchen reported in a 2025 paper In Lancet's planetary healthTemperatures above 86 ° F can reduce beneficial antioxidants levels in food, while increasing the absorption of environmental arsenic by rice plants, which negatively affect the intestinal microbiome. Higher levels of carbon dioxide can reduce zinc, iron and protein levels in wheat, rice and corn, which could lead 100 million people to become protein deficient and 200 million more deficient in zinc by 2050. Higher ocean temperatures can also reduce the availability of fish and seafood, lowering protein intake and changes of changes of protein and changes. Microbiota, especially in weak and medium countries.
“There is a phenomenon called” hidden hunger “, explains Litchen. “Basically, this means that you consume the same amount of food but the nutritional quality of food changes. There are fewer nutrients and food is more difficult to digest.”
Direct hunger – does not get enough to eat, whether food is high quality or not – also becomes an increasing concern as an overheated climate and that extreme weather conditions fail, often in already disadvantaged parts of the world. “While more and more regions of the world are becoming inhospitable to agriculture, the problem will only become greater,” explains Quigley. “There is a very beautiful correlation between the diversity of your diet and the diversity of your microbiome, and in terms of intestine, diversity is a good thing.”
If climate change is resolved, no one claims that it will be resolved soon. Last year was the warmest ever recordedMoving 2023, which had briefly held this distinction, and the last decade represents the hottest 10 years of all time. The planet suffers from our hands – and more and more, our own health is too.
