Heat vs. Humidity: A Health Debate

Researchers debate if humidity makes heat more deadly, and finding excess diabetes cases in Ukrainian people that were born right after the 1930s famine

First up this week, which is worse: the heat or the humidity? Staff writer Meredith Wadman joins host Sarah Crespi to talk about conflicting reports on the risk of increased mortality when humidity compounds heat, and how to resolve the debate in the field.  

Next, LH Lumey, a professor of epidemiology at the Columbia University Medical Center, discusses what the catastrophe of a famine can teach us about the importance of maternal and fetal health for the long term. His work focuses on records of a 1930s Ukrainian famine painstakingly reconstructed by Ukrainian demographers after being obscured by the former Soviet Union. The famine records combined with newer data show that babies gestated during famine are more likely to acquire type 2 diabetes later in life. 

This week’s episode was produced with help from Podigy.

About the Science Podcast

Authors: Sarah Crespi, Meredith Wadman

Episode page: https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.z6yms94

About the Science Podcast: https://www.science.org/content/page/about-science-podcast

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