Heatwaves are making people age faster, study suggests

August 25, 2025

Repeated exposure to heatwaves is accelerating ageing in people, according to a study. The impact is broadly comparable with the damage smoking, alcohol use, poor diet or limited exercise can have on health, the researchers said.

Extreme temperatures are increasingly common owing to the climate crisis, potentially causing widespread and long-lasting damage to the health of billions, the scientists warned. The research represents a “paradigm shift” in the understanding of the extent and severity of heat’s impact on our health, which can be lifelong, according to one expert.

It was already known that heatwaves cause short-term spikes in early deaths with, for example, almost 600 premature deaths linked to a June heatwave in England. But the new analysis is one of the first to assess the longer-term impact. The Guardian