Study links warmer climate to rising cancer rates in women

Global warming could be making cancer in women more common and deadly, according to a study conducted in the Middle East and North Africa.

- PRESS TRUST OF INDIA

The region is predicted to reach three to four degrees Celsius of warming about three decades earlier than the rest of the world.

Summers in Middle Eastern nations, such as the United Arab Emirates, are characterised by extremely high temperatures - sometimes touching 50 degrees Celsius while North Africa sees temperatures in the range of 40-50 degrees Celsius.

Analysing prevalence and deaths due to cancer with temperatures between 1998 and 2019, researchers, including those from The American University in Cairo, Egypt, found a “small, but statistically significant” rise in prevalence and death rates of breast, ovarian, uterine, and cervical cancers.

For an increase in temperature by a degree Celsius, prevalence of the cancers was found to rise by 173-280 cases per one lakh people cases of ovarian cancer rose the most, and those of breast cancer the least.