In an news article in the Canadian Medical Association Journal (CMAJ) entitled “The meteorology of the human body”, the author explains how patients suffering from migraine, heart disease, asthma, arthritis or diabetes can receive free personalized e-mail alerts before changes in the weather aggravate their condition.

“Achy joints, according to folklore, point to the arrival of rain. It’s a tale told by many an arthritic grandmother, but it also holds true in medicine. Weather can influence a variety of medical conditions, worsening symptoms and, in some cases, increasing the risk of death. But keeping track of weather patterns and their impact can be time-consuming and confusing for patients. MediClim, a new online service, hopes to take the guesswork out of weather-health management.

“Dr. John Bart and meteorologist Denis Bourque have launched a free subscriber-based alert system that notifies users by email when their symptoms might be aggravated by upcoming weather conditions. The service aims to help people better manage their medical conditions. “We hope that forewarned is forearmed,” says Bart.”

“MediClim (www.mediclim.com) tracks weather patterns and associates them with 5 medical conditions: arthritis, asthma, diabetes, heart disease and migraine. Subscribers provide a small amount of personal information, including their illness, postal code and email address, and receive alerts when the weather changes in such a way that it can cause a flare-up. Most people who sign up receive 2-4 warnings a month.”

“The service is currently available in Canada, the United States and the United Kingdom, but Bart says they hope to roll it out across Europe, beginning with France in April. They will continue to add conditions to the database as they collect more data. “We wanted to provide people with the opportunity to understand that the environment is involved in their health and that they can do something about it,” Bart says. Although not everybody is equally affected by weather, some may find the warnings informative. For example, a woman with arthritis may want to postpone a shopping trip to the mall if the weather suggests her symptoms may worsen over the next 24 hours.”

More at CMAJ.

Photo from The Telegraph.