Global warming seen as heart hazard

VIENNA, Austria — Global warming may be melting glaciers and forcing polar bears onto land, but doctors warn it could also affect your heart.

"If it really is a few degrees warmer in the next 50 years, we could definitely have more cardiovascular disease," said Dr. Karin Schenck-Gustafsson, of the department of cardiology at Sweden's Karolinska Institute.

On the sidelines of the European Society of Cardiology's annual meeting in Vienna this week, some experts said the issue deserves more attention. It's well-known that people have more heart problems when it's hot.

During the European heat wave in 2003, there were an estimated 35,000 deaths above expected levels in the first two weeks of August. In France alone, nearly 15,000 extra people died when temperatures soared. Experts say much of that was due to heart problems in the elderly worsened by the extreme heat.

The hardening of the heart's arteries is like rust developing on a car, said Dr. Gordon Tomaselli, chief of cardiology at Johns Hopkins University. "Rust develops much more quickly at warm temperatures and so does atherosclerosis," said Tomaselli, who is program chair at the American Heart Association.

In higher temperatures, we sweat to get rid of heat. During that process, blood is sent to the skin where temperatures are cooler, which opens up the blood vessels. In turn, the heart rate rises and blood pressure drops. That combination can be dangerous for older people and those with weakened cardiovascular systems.

But because there are so many scientific uncertainties about climate change, like how fast it will occur, or what other factors — such as pollution levels or natural phenomena — might affect it, doctors are unsure what exactly to prescribe.

In addition, there are too many unknowns in connecting global warming and heart disease to predict how many more people will have heart problems in the future.

Other factors may also make climate change more dangerous, such as the fact that, in the future, the majority of the world's population is expected to live in cities. With concrete skyscrapers, fewer trees and pollution spewed from factories and cars, cities are at least a few degrees hotter than surrounding rural areas.

Doctors also suspect that pollution, which is expected to get worse with climate change, contributes to heart disease. They think that when the lungs are irritated by tiny airborne contaminants, that could set off a bad reaction in the heart.

"A lot of cardiovascular risk could be avoided by targeting the urban heat effect," said Diarmid Campbell-Lendrum, a climate-change expert at the World Health Organization.

Below zero outside, zero emissions inside

The Belgian-based International Polar Foundation on Wednesday unveiled what it claimed to be the world's first zero-emissions polar science station in Antarctica to conduct research on climate change.

The Princess Elisabeth station will be a totally energy self-sufficient research base that will allow scientists to study the impact of climate change in one of the world's most inhospitable environments without leaving a big polluting mark, scientists said.

The $16.3 million, prefabricated station will be transferred to the South Pole from Belgium by ship later this month.

"This base will be the first of its kind to produce zero emissions, making it a unique model of how energy should be used in the Antarctic," said Belgian polar explorer Alain Hubert, who helped establish the foundation, which researches the impact of climate change on polar caps.

Research at the base, which has an octagonal, spaceshiplike design and sits on stilts, would focus on the analysis of the deep ice shelves, he said.