VIDEO: Climate change, brain health inextricably linked

DENVER — A panel of four experts discussed different aspects of the ways brain health and climate change are linked at the American Academy of Neurology annual meeting.

“Climate change affects not only brain health, but general health,” Ali Saad, MD, affiliate faculty, University of Colorado Climate and Health Program, told Healio in this video about the panel discussion.

Pollution that contributes to climate change is directly impactful and harmful to our brains and our bodies by causing inflammation, dehydration and heat stress, which in turn, contribute to the risks of stroke and dementia, Saad noted. Social determinants of health, such as access to healthy air and water, food, health care systems and stress on infrastructure, are all byproducts of the process.

“As global temperatures are rising due to climate change, new infections are developing and previously known infections are being found in new geographic areas,” said Monica M. Diaz, MD, MS, assistant professor of neurology in the department of neurology at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill School of Medicine, who discussed climate change and its impact on neurologic infections during the panel.

Diaz called for a “better surveillance system” to monitor tick-borne illnesses like Lyme disease, Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever and mosquito-borne illnesses like malaria and West Nile virus.

Beth Malow, MD, MS, a professor in the departments of neurology and pediatrics at Vanderbilt University Medical Center and Bret Andrews, DO, a neurologist and contract worker at Kaiser Permanente in Oakland, California, expressed hope that increased advocacy by neurologists for colleagues and trainees could spur discussions on climate change and brain health, which may spread to the community at large.

“Climate change and health are squarely in our lane,” Malow said.