According to the world's largest study of the association of temperature changes and kidney disease has shown that cases of renal diseases increase due to high temperature. The final results of the study were published in 'The Lancet Regional Health - Americas' journal. In Brazil, in which the study was aimed on more than 202,000 cases of kidney disease from the years 2000-2015. The study was led by Professor Yuming Guo and Dr. Shanshan Li, Planetary Health at Monash University. The study focused on the risk and burden for hospitals of renal diseases in connection with the temperature by reading daily hospital admission data from 1816 cities in Brazil.
According to this study, it was revealed that the link between temperature changes and kidney disease affects 7.4 per cent of all hospitalisations for renal disease and can clearly be an indication of increase in the temperature. The study recorded was about a total of 2,726,886 hospitalisations for renal diseases. As per Professor Guo, for every 1 degree Celsius increase in the everyday mean temperature, there is around 1 percent increase in renal disease, while most of them being women, children under 4 years of age and others more than 80 years of age. The link between temperature and renal diseases were largest on the day of the exposure to high temperatures but stayed atleast for 1-2 days after getting exposed.
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The authors of the paper, who are professors from the University of Sao Paulo also said that the study "provides robust evidence that more policies should be developed to prevent heat-related hospitalisations and mitigate climate change. In the context of global warming, more strategies and policies should be developed to prevent heat-related hospitalisations." Professor Guo further added, "Moreover, attention should be paid to low- and middle-income countries like Brazil, where reliable heat warning systems and preventive measures are still in need."
