During thunderstorms, people feel bad, but why?
In 2010, researchers from Harvard medical school, began to suspect that, in stormy days people are more likely to seek medical help. And no, it's absolutely not that they are so afraid of thunder and lightning that they have a sick heart. Patients, particularly the elderly, complain of a headache, nasal congestion and cough — in General, the most common symptoms of acute respiratory viral infection (ARVI). The relationship between thunderstorm days and aggravation of respiratory diseases is still not proven by science, but recently, the American scientists decided to search at least remote of the evidence. After studying the statistics of thunderstorms for more than a 10-year period of time and comparing their frequency with the number of calls to the hospital, they discovered some very interesting patterns.
The scientific Results were published in science . In the framework of the scientific work of Eric Zou (Zou Eric) from the University of the U.S. state of Oregon and his colleagues found out how much time were thunderstorms in various regions of the United States in the period from January 1999 to December 2012. All of this information was provided by the National oceanic and atmospheric administration (NOAA). Also at the disposal of scientists were the statistics of complaints of the elderly during the same time period. This statistic was drawn from a database of Medicare health insurance people over age 65.
Fear of thunderstorms is called brontophobia. It can also cause ailments
To the surprise of researchers, in the stormy periods, the number of cases in the hospital really increased, though insignificantly. Statistics showed that over the 14 year period, before and after storm rainfall, in medical institutions asked about 52 thousand people. Most of them complained of various respiratory problems ranging from common cough and ending with shortness of breath. Particularly strong in the storm was the reaction of older people who have serious problems with respiratory organs like asthma and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease.
Thus, the relationship between thunderstorm days and exacerbation of respiratory diseases, vaguely can be called proven. But the exact cause of increased morbidity for scientists still remains a mystery. One would assume that when running during the thunderstorm rain knows air pollen, which causes problems with breathing. But, first, why are diseases of the respiratory organs not aggravated during ordinary rains without thunder and lightning? Second, the deterioration observed prior to the storm, and after it the symptoms of disease gradually disappear.
Pollen can cause problems with the respiratory system, but not in this case.
Because Of all the above facts scientists deny the guilt of pollen in the incidence of people. They are more inclined to the version that says that the respiratory people are starting to suffer due to the increase in the number of dust particles in the air. And their concentration as time increased before the thunderstorms that repeatedly has been proven in scientific observations.
Of Course, we should not forget that thunderstorms pose to human health the immediate danger with lightning. At the moment it is known that the length of some of the lightning can , and they did not fade away up to 16 seconds. The current in each discharge of lightning is from tens of millions to a billion volts. In most cases, after a lightning strike, the man instantly dies. But in history there are many cases where people survived even after a severe shock — after that, their bodies remained visible traces, but which you can see .
Roy Sullivan (Roy Sullivan)
A man named Roy Sullivan (Roy Sullivan) the lightning fell seven times and in each case he managed to survive. The storm caught him in the different moments of life: when he was little and helped my father, when he grew up and worked at his trade, and so on. And zipper like he had been hit, if not directly, then at least Bouncing off of other objects. Surprisingly, Roy Sullivan died from a lightning strike, but for a completely different reason. Read more about his life I told you on our .
