Climate Change and Cardiovascular Disease

Climate change is no longer only an environmental concern; it has become a major public health challenge with direct and indirect effects on the human heart. Rising temperatures, extreme heat waves, air pollution, wildfires, floods, droughts, food insecurity, changing infection patterns, and displacement of populations are now influencing cardiovascular health across the world. The heart and blood vessels are highly sensitive to environmental stress, and the burden of climate-related cardiovascular disease is expected to increase in the coming decades.

Climate Change and Cardiovascular Disease is written to highlight the important relationship between environmental change and heart health. This book explains how climate-related factors can worsen hypertension, coronary artery disease, heart failure, arrhythmias, stroke risk, thrombotic events, renal dysfunction, and cardiometabolic disorders. It also emphasizes the increased vulnerability of elderly patients, pregnant women, children, outdoor workers, low-income communities, patients with chronic disease, and those living in highly polluted or heat-prone regions.

Extreme heat places additional strain on the cardiovascular system by increasing heart rate, causing dehydration, lowering blood pressure, altering electrolyte balance, and increasing the risk of myocardial ischemia and arrhythmia. Air pollution contributes to endothelial dysfunction, inflammation, oxidative stress, plaque instability, thrombosis, and progression of atherosclerosis. Climate-driven disasters can interrupt access to medications, delay emergency care, increase psychological stress, and worsen long-term cardiovascular outcomes.

This Kindle edition is designed for doctors, cardiologists, physicians, public health professionals, medical students, policy makers, environmental health researchers, and informed readers who wish to understand the emerging connection between climate change and cardiovascular disease. The book presents the subject in a clinically meaningful and practical manner, helping readers recognize environmental risk as an important component of modern cardiovascular care.

The book explores key topics such as heat stress and heart disease, pollution-related cardiovascular risk, wildfire smoke exposure, climate change and hypertension, heart failure during extreme weather, arrhythmias and electrolyte imbalance, thrombosis risk, stroke burden, occupational cardiovascular hazards, climate disasters and healthcare disruption, preventive cardiology in a warming world, and the role of clinicians in patient education and advocacy.

In the modern era, cardiovascular prevention must extend beyond lifestyle, drugs, procedures, and hospital-based care. It must also include awareness of the environment in which patients live, work, breathe, and age. Protecting cardiovascular health requires cooperation between medicine, public health, urban planning, environmental science, and policy leadership.

Climate Change and Cardiovascular Disease offers a timely and necessary perspective on one of the most important health challenges of the 21st century. Written by Dr A M Thirugnanam, this book encourages clinicians and readers to think beyond the clinic and recognize that protecting the planet is also an essential step toward protecting the human heart.