New research finds a link between increasingly extreme heat in the Middle East and rising rates of cancer in women.
For the study, researchers amassed data on breast, ovarian, cervical, and uterine cancer across North Africa and the Middle East from 1998 to 2019. They found that as temperatures in the region rose, so did cancer rates in Qatar, Bahrain, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, and Syria, which are prone to extremely hot summers.
For every additional degree Celsius of warming, the regional prevalence of each of the four cancers ticked up, with breast cancer rising by as many as 280 cases per 100,000 people. Mortality also rose, by as much as 332 deaths per 100,000 people for ovarian cancer. The findings were published in Frontiers in Public Health.
Researchers said that increasingly extreme heat is making air pollution worse, weakening our immune systems, and putting additional strain on hospitals. These and other factors could be driving up the risk of cancer.
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