“`html
Upon observing her declining well-being, agricultural laborer Kalpana Suryawanshi frequently becomes uneasy about how rapidly she is growing older. (Image credit: Sanket Jain)ShareShare by:
- Copy link
- X
Share this article 2Join the conversationFollow usAdd us as a preferred source on GoogleNewsletterSubscribe to our newsletter
Every day, Kalpana Suryawanshi, 48, gazes into the mirror and murmurs, “I appear more aged than I am.”
She received a diagnosis of Type 2 diabetes eight years prior. Since then, her condition has worsened, and she attributes this to heightened exposure to warmth during her field work, which involves planting crops, gathering harvests, and transporting significant quantities of animal feed. She frequently dealt with lightheadedness and enervation throughout this period as temperatures surpassed 40 degrees Celsius (104 F) in Nandani, her village located in the Indian state of Maharashtra.
It’s recognized that heat influences cognitive abilities, heart health, and renal performance. An expanding body of research also indicates that prolonged exposure to increasing warmth hastens the body’s aging mechanisms. A German study released in 2023 through Environment International became the foremost to determine that elevated air temperatures are correlated with quicker aging at a cell level. The investigation revealed that consistent exposure to increased heat levels could cause the body to age more rapidly than its numerical age, a condition referred to as epigenetic age surge. Scientists assess this process via epigenetic timekeepers that dissect chemical indicators termed DNA methylation, which activate and deactivate genes. The research revealed that individuals in areas where the average annual temperature is 1°C higher tend to display indications of accelerated aging on a cellular level.
You may like
-
Decreasing tree cover in California schools might place children in danger of intense warmth
-
Analysis indicates that deaths associated with wildfire smoke in the U.S. may surge to 70,000 annually by 2050 due to climatic shifts
-
‘An accelerating assault on water supplies from numerous angles’: Scientists caution that ‘day zero droughts’ might transpire before 2030
What is epigenetic age?
When scientists discuss epigenetic age, they quantify how old a body exists at the cellular level, which may contrast from the actual age expressed in years. This determination is built on alterations to DNA called epigenetic markers, otherwise known as chemical labels that switch genes between active and inactive states.
These labels are shaped by environment, lifestyle, and stress. As people age, the arrangement of these chemical indicators shifts, a detail which scientists utilize to assemble an epigenetic clock, a device which approximates biological age.
The genes influenced by these changes regulate several critical functions, such as mending cells and tissues and delivering protection from poisons. The misactivation or deactivation of genes can impede the body’s capacity to self-repair, combat disease, or recuperate from tension. With time, these subtle alterations may reveal external aging indicators, such as fragile bones or decelerated healing rates.
Epigenetic age provides insight into the interior health and vigor of the body.
The year 2024 was documented as the hottest year on record, with an estimated 6.8 billion individuals globally enduring at least 31 days of extreme heat. A peculiar consequence of this growing warmth is directly noticed by community health operatives in India, who note an increasing number of individuals seeming older relative to their actual years.
How heat could accelerate aging
Scientists are presently discovering the biological processes that trigger premature aging. Wenli Ni, a postdoctoral fellow at Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health and the primary writer of the German study, noted that contact with warmth could bring on modifications in DNA methylation, a natural action which can sway gene presentation and cell functions.
She elaborated that this mechanism can initiate hazardous biological operations and hasten aging. “Contact with heat may likewise give rise to oxidative stress, bringing about DNA harm that could modify DNA methylation patterns while impacting aging,” she mentioned. Oxidative damage occurs when unstable molecules, known as free radicals, disrupt cells. They can impair DNA, cellular linings, and proteins, playing a role in aging, cancerous conditions, and cardiovascular ailments.
These conclusions were mirrored in Taiwan, where researchers examined over 2,000 subjects and observed that considerable ambient temperature and heat index exposure were tied to escalated aging, with stronger associations in cases of protracted contact. The study pointed out that an increase of 1°C in the 180-day average temperature related to a surge of 0.04 to 0.08 years in biological age escalation, according to estimations from three distinct epigenetic aging clocks.
While this acceleration in aging might initially appear modest, it is essential to recognize how such impacts can accumulate over time. Even slight gains in biological aging, if sustained annually, can total multiple years of advanced aging. This can precipitate earlier onsets of age-related illnesses. Furthermore, when these limited shifts touch wide populations, they might contribute to a considerable upturn in the pervasiveness of disease and the expenses associated with healthcare.
A recent study featured in Science Advances scrutinized the correlation between warmth and aging among more than 3,500 U.S. adults, aged 56 and older. The findings indicated that lasting warmth exposure, ranging from one to six years, was related to epigenetic aging. Consistent contact with elevated warmth can cause frequent sleep problems, elevating sensations of stress and worry. This progressive physiological decay accumulates and potentially hastens health depreciation with age.
You may like
-
Decreasing tree cover in California schools might place children in danger of intense warmth
-
Analysis indicates that deaths associated with wildfire smoke in the U.S. may surge to 70,000 annually by 2050 due to climatic shifts
-
‘An accelerating assault on water supplies from numerous angles’: Scientists caution that ‘day zero droughts’ might transpire before 2030
Women disproportionately affected
As per the German study, females and those grappling with obesity or Type 2 diabetes exhibited sharper correlations between air warmth and aging. Typically, women perspire less and demonstrate distinct body reactions to heat, making it challenging for them to lower their body temperature and sometimes escalating their body’s heat level quicker, Ni clarified.
She also stated that research suggests women have an increased threshold for activating perspiration mechanisms during heightened temperatures, suggesting it takes their bodies longer to begin sweating.
Diabetes can also render individuals more vulnerable to elevated warmth. Those with diabetes frequently exhibit reduced blood flow towards their skin, which can interfere with the body’s ability to emit heat and stay cool amid warmer conditions.
Moreover, body fat may serve as insulation, making it harder for warmth to transfer from the body core to the skin, limiting its capability to release heat and maintain a cool state.
Epigenetic age acceleration may promote cardiovascular ailments, cancerous conditions, diabetes, and mortality, thus heightening burdens on public healthcare frameworks.
In 2016, Rajma Jamadar, currently 47, from Haroli, a village within Maharashtra, awoke mid-evening exhibiting anomalous heart rhythms. She was informed the following day by a physician that her blood pressure surged, mandating lifetime medication. Her indications intensified within months as her cardiovascular wellness declined. “After undergoing further examination, the doctor informed me that my heart does not pump blood effectively,” she mentioned.
She cooks meals for 175 school children at a local government school, but escalating temperatures render her role increasingly challenging since heat from cooking drains her vitality. “Every day, I become ill,” she confessed.
Rajma Jamadar has ceased venturing outside her residence amid peak heat conditions. The risks could start even before birth
Notably, climate shifts can sometimes precipitate epigenetic aging in children, even before they are born. A study from last year within Nature examined 104 drought-affected children and 109 same-gender sibling controls originating from northern Kenya. The results demonstrated a favorable correlation among in-utero drought contact and aging, thereby highlighting that the stressors from drought can lessen total lifespan.
According to study author Bilinda Straight, modifications can take place via three crucial bodily pathways. The primary pathway is the immune system, the body’s preliminary defense that offers protection from infections and disease. The next includes metabolic operations that provision the body with energy. The third has the task of maintaining and repairing cells when faced with duress.
“Whether the threat we come up against is either physical or emotional, we still experience it as a menace to our homeostasis, an equilibrium that safeguards health across all our physiological systems,” she elucidated. This demonstrates that the emotional tension experienced by the research subjects, alongside caloric restriction and dehydration, activated systems that assist the body in contending with stress but can negatively affect health when excessively activated for prolonged durations.
Study women were perceived as actively engaged in external employment while contending with appetite and loss of bodily fluids. “Those physical stressors were coupled with apprehension regarding their next meal, and the meals of their children and family,” she added.
Furthermore, societal facets such as gender disparity subjected women to force, overwork, and acts of violence. While farmers stand to risk deprivation from drought, people involved in livestock agriculture endure emotional and financial encumbrances of observing their animals wither. These factors, combined with heat-related tension, dehydration, and famine, create dire circumstances. In time, such maternal stress during pregnancy plays a role in modifications in DNA methylation within their children, Straight noted.
RELATED STORIES
—Biological aging may not be driven by what we thought
—Climate change is spoiling food faster, making hundreds of millions of people sick around the world
—Climate wars are approaching — and they will redefine global conflict
She proposes supplying suitable sustenance and intimate surveillance regarding children’s cardiovascular and metabolic health. Researchers push for longer-term studies that better clarify how the environment bears on epigenetic age acceleration. “Moderating epigenetic age acceleration may hinge on bettering food safety and pinpointing alternatives for women employed in hazardous occupations,” she continued. Efficient policies are required for reaching food and livelihood security while lessening social and economic divides.
However, for numerous women, economic precarity coupled with lacking social safety nets render it nearly unfeasible to prioritize wellness. Suryawanshi’s plight exemplifies the aforementioned predicament. Thus far, she has dispensed more than 600,000 Indian rupees (equating to $7,046) on medical care. “I am unable to sustain more charges, so I have ended specific medications,” she reported. She has been a patient at eight hospitals over a two-year timeframe in her search for efficacious treatments. “It is astonishing I am still alive. Despite being merely 48, I possess no lingering vitality, yet I still have to maintain work.”
This article was originally published by Yale Climate Connections.
Sanket JainJournalist
Sanket Jain operates as an independent journalist along with documentary photographer, with a base of operations contained within Western India’s Maharashtra state. Sanket’s pieces have graced the pages and platforms of over 35 publications, encompassing entities such as MIT Technology Review, Devex, Wired, Telegraph, Thomson Reuters Foundation, The Nation, British Medical Journal, Verge, USA Today, Progressive Magazine among others. He was the recipient of the 2025 Eric and Wendy Schmidt Award, which recognizes Excellence in Science Communications.
Show More Comments
You must confirm your public display name before commenting
Please logout and then login again, you will then be prompted to enter your display name.
LogoutRead more
Decreasing tree cover in California schools might place children in danger of intense warmth
Analysis indicates that deaths associated with wildfire smoke in the U.S. may surge to 70,000 annually by 2050 due to climatic shifts
‘An accelerating assault on water supplies from numerous angles’: Scientists caution that ‘day zero droughts’ might transpire before 2030