As climate change warms the planet, high ambient temperatures are expected to be more common and intense over the coming decades in the U.S. and worldwide.
Researchers from the Yale School of Public Health (YSPH) have studied how rising temperatures adversely affect human health. A new study in The Lancet Planetary Health journal finds that exposure to high ambient temperatures during pregnancy can have detrimental impact on the health of the offspring. This is the first study that directly evaluates the association between hot temperatures during pregnancy and the risk of cancer in children.
"Our study is adding to a growing body of literature that underscores that high ambient temperature not only has immediate health effects, but also may be a cause of future chronic diseases," said Tormod Rogne, the study's first author and assistant professor of epidemiology at YSPH. The researchers looked at acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL), the most common type of malignancy in children whose incidence has been increasing for decades. In the U.
S., ALL disproportionately affects Latino children. Previous scientific research has established that most cases of childhood ALL have a prenatal origin.
Environmental exposures during pregnancy, such as air pollution, have been linked to an increased risk of childhood ALL. "Exposure during the first trimester is suspected to be the most critical because this is when the most profound developmental alterations in hematopoiesis occur," said Xiao.
