Effects of cold climate on growth and development

Abstract

Abstract Climate is one of the environmental conditions on which people live. Climate conditions impact every aspect of people’s daily life and production activities, even the survival of humankind. In recent years, human activities have adversely changed the climate. The emergence of global warming and extreme weather has prompted people to pay attention to the impact of climate on life. The adverse climate issues include reduced quality of air and food, facilitated spread of diseases and increased mortality of the population. Being more orientated to climate changes in the past, research has been less alerted to the negative impacts that climate changes could bring to human health. This could be ascribed to that after living in a region for a long time, the human body has “adapted” to climate. And after adaptation, routine health outcomes such as disease incidence and hospitalization rate become less obvious, making the habitants blind from the undesirable impacts of climate on the health status. This review article summarizes the impacts of cold climate on human development, including maternal/fetal factors, lifestyle factors, etc., and delineates the relationship between cold climate and human health.