Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
Review
. 2024 Mar 2;3(4):519-534.
doi: 10.1016/j.gastha.2024.01.018. eCollection 2024.

The Impact of Climate Change, Pollution, and Biodiversity Loss on Digestive Health and Disease

Desmond Leddin  1
Affiliations
Review

The Impact of Climate Change, Pollution, and Biodiversity Loss on Digestive Health and Disease

Desmond Leddin. Gastro Hep Adv. .

Abstract

The environment is changing rapidly under pressure from 3 related drivers: climate change, pollution, and biodiversity loss. These environmental changes are affecting digestive health and disease in multiple ways. Heat extremes can cause intestinal and hepatic dysfunction. Access to adequate amounts of food of high nutritional content and to clean water is under threat. Extreme weather is associated with flooding and enteric infections and affects the delivery of care through infrastructure loss. Air, water, and soil pollution from chemicals and plastics are emerging as risk factors for a variety of intestinal diseases including eosinophilic esophagitis, metabolic dysfunction associated fatty liver disease, digestive tract cancers, inflammatory bowel disease, and functional bowel disease. Migration of populations to cities and between countries poses a special challenge to the delivery of digestive care. The response to the threat of environmental change is well underway in the global digestive health community, especially with regard to understanding and reducing the environmental impact of endoscopy. Individuals, and peer societies, are becoming more engaged, and have an important role to play in meeting the challenge.

Keywords: Biodiversity; Environmental Change; Environmental Pollution; Global Warming; Hepatology.

PubMed Disclaimer

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
The Greenhouse Effect. Greenhouse gases (GHGs) reduce the amount of energy radiated from the Earth being lost into space. Some of the sources of GHG are shown in the lower figure. CFCs are ChloroFluoroCarbons, commonly used in aerosol sprays, as solvents and refrigerants.
Figure 2
Figure 2
Top panels show the changes in surface temperature as GMST reaches 1.5°C and 2.0°C above preindustrial. The lower panels show the corresponding change in precipitation. Reproduced with permission from Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).
Figure 3
Figure 3
The effects of a changing environment on digestive health. Global warming, pollution, and biodiversity loss are raising temperature, increasing extreme weather, and decreasing air quality. These effects are linked to a variety of digestive health disorders.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

References

    1. World Health Organisation Refugee and migrant health. 2022. https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/refugee-and-migrant-health Available from:
    1. Leddin D., Montgomery H. The fundamentals: understanding the climate change crisis. Gut. 2023;72(12):2196–2198. - PubMed
    1. Five key takeaways from COP27: United Nations Climate Change. 2022. https://unfccc.int/process-and-meetings/conferences/sharm-el-sheikh-clim... [cited 2023 December]. Available from:
    1. IPCC . In: IPCC special report on the ocean and cryosphere in a changing climate. Pörtner H.-O., Roberts D.C., Masson-Delmotte V., et al., editors. Cambridge University Press; Cambridge, UK and New York, NY, USA: 2019. IPCC, 2019: Summary for policymakers; pp. 3–35.
    1. US Environmental Protection Agency Overview of greenhouse gases. 2023. https://www.epa.gov/ghgemissions/overview-greenhouse-gases Available from:

LinkOut - more resources