Climate Change and Human Health: A Review of Allergies, Autoimmunity and the Microbiome
Department of Neurology, Rutgers New Jersey Medical School, Newark, NJ 07103, USA
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Int. J. Environ. Res. Public Health 2020, 17(13), 4814; https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph17134814
Received: 29 April 2020 / Revised: 26 June 2020 / Accepted: 29 June 2020 / Published: 4 July 2020
(This article belongs to the Section Climate Change and Health)
The impact of climate change on human health is a topic of critical importance. While only recently beginning to gain attention, it is clear that immediate action is necessary to minimize this impact. In our review, we will outline a subset of these effects in detail. We will examine how climate change has worsened respiratory allergic disease. We will discuss how climate change has altered antigen exposure, possibly disrupting antigen-specific tolerance by the immune system, leading, in turn, to an increase in the prevalence of immunologic diseases. Finally, we will explore how the loss of biodiversity related to climate change may affect the microbiome, potentially leading to dysbiosis, inflammatory, autoimmune and neurologic diseases.
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Keywords:
climate change; allergy; autoimmunity; microbiome; dysbiosis; neurodevelopment
This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited
MDPI and ACS Style
Ray, C.; Ming, X. Climate Change and Human Health: A Review of Allergies, Autoimmunity and the Microbiome. Int. J. Environ. Res. Public Health 2020, 17, 4814.
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