FLICKR, C.M. KEINERRecently noted for their association with an increased risk of conflict, warmer temperatures may also be responsible in part for an uptick in hospitalizations related to inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) and infectious gastroenteritis (IG).
A retrospective study out of University Hospital Zurich has found that heat waves significantly increase the risk of both IBD and IG flares compared with typical weather. Analyzing information collected from 738 IBD and 786 IG patients admitted to the Swiss hospital between 2001 and 2005, as well as from 506 people who were hospitalized for other noninfectious chronic intestinal inflammations, Christine Manser and her colleagues found that heat waves increased the risk of IBD flares by 4.6 percent and of IG flares by 4.7 percent for every additional day within the period of elevated temperatures. The researchers also found that the effect of heat waves on people with IG was most pronounced after a full week of heat, whereas the effect of high temperatures ...
