Hot weather is bad for your heart, Australian study finds

Researchers in Australia have drawn a link between cardiovascular disease and hot weather, forecasting that the heart-disease burden could double by the 2050s if current climate trends continue.

They found that an average of 49,483 years of healthy life were lost annually to cardiovascular disease caused by hot weather in Australia from 2003 to 2018.

The authors of the study, published in the European Heart Journal on Monday, used data on illness or death caused by heart disease during that span from the Australian Burden of Disease Database.

They then calculated that about 7.3 per cent of the total burden from cardiovascular disease or death could be attributed to extreme weather conditions.

Their modelling suggests that that figure could double or even triple by 2050, depending on the amount of greenhouse-gas emissions, as outlined by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.