Climate Change and Skin disease
There is a link between Climate change and skin disease? Climate change and pollution certainly affect the health of the skin, the organ of the body most exposed to atmospheric pollutants and climate change. Although the topic is highly topical, there are currently few studies on the effects of climate change on human skin.
Increases in temperature and humidity affect skin health and in particular affect the most vulnerable individuals such as children and the elderly, women expecting a baby, outdoor workers and athletes, workers in uncooled environments, people with chronic diseases or altered mobility and behaviour, poor populations, inhabitants of warmer urban areas.
Climatic factors can influence many skin conditions, for example they can affect the incidence of chronic diseases such as atopic dermatitis and psoriasis. In other cases, deforestation and climate change have been associated with changes in the distribution of vectors of some infectious skin diseases (e.g. leismaniasis, borreliosis), modifying their spread, while warm and humid environments can favour the colonisation of the skin by fungi and bacteria.
Cutaneous melanoma is a cancer that results from the cancerous transformation of melanocytes, some of the cells that form the skin. The skin is the largest organ in our body and is made up of three layers: the epidermis, the dermis and the subcutaneous or fatty tissue. Melanocytes are part, together with keratinocytes, of the epidermis and have the task of producing melanin, a pigment that protects from the harmful effects of sunlight. Under normal conditions melanocytes can give rise to dark agglomerations visible on the surface of the skin and known as moles (nevi is the medical term).