研究表明，雷暴會引發(fā)哮喘，需要住院治療

研究表明，雷暴會引發(fā)哮喘，需要住院治療

The calm before the storm isn't really so calm, at least not for anyone with asthma or other severe breathing disorders, new research shows.

新的研究表明，暴風雨前的平靜并不是真的那么平靜，至少對患有哮喘或其他嚴重呼吸障礙的人來說不是這樣。

During the days before a major thunderstorm hits, emergency room visits for seniors who suffer from asthma and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) rose significantly, according to a research letter published Monday in JAMA Internal Medicine.

周一發(fā)表在《美國醫(yī)學會雜志內(nèi)科學》上的一份研究報告稱，在大雷暴襲擊前幾天，患哮喘和慢性阻塞性肺病(COPD)的老年人急診室就診人數(shù)顯著增加。

Although the study used Medicare data for those 65 years and older, the danger is just as real for younger people with severe respiratory illnesses, said study author Dr. Anupam Jena, an associate professor of health care policy at Harvard Medical School.

哈佛醫(yī)學院衛(wèi)生保健政策副教授、研究作者阿努帕姆·杰納博士說，盡管這項研究使用了65歲以上老年人的醫(yī)療保險數(shù)據(jù)，但對于患有嚴重呼吸道疾病的年輕人來說，這種危險也是真實存在的。

"It could certainly impact children and younger adults with asthma," Jena said. "We just needed to have the specific data Medicare provides so we could compare hospitalization rates with weather patterns in small areas."

杰納說:“這肯定會影響到患有哮喘的兒童和年輕人。”“我們只需要有醫(yī)療保險提供的具體數(shù)據(jù)，這樣我們就可以比較小地區(qū)的住院率和天氣模式。”

The study found the emergency visits peaked the day before the storm, with a mean 1.8 additional visits per million beneficiaries.

研究發(fā)現(xiàn)，在風暴發(fā)生的前一天，急救訪問達到峰值，平均每百萬人增加1.8次訪問。

"And after the storm is over, we saw the rates of visits to the ER went down." Jena said.

杰納說:“風暴過后，我們看到急診室的訪問量下降了。”

Thunderstorm asthma

雷暴（引發(fā)的）哮喘

The phenomenon of "thunderstorm asthma" was first recorded in Birmingham, England in 1983 and in Melbourne, Australia in 1987, where widespread waves of asthma attacks appeared to be connected to violent thunderstorms during high pollen counts.

“雷暴哮喘”現(xiàn)象最早于1983年在英格蘭伯明翰和1987年在澳大利亞墨爾本被記錄下來。在墨爾本，廣泛的哮喘發(fā)作似乎與花粉含量高時的猛烈雷暴有關。

It happened again in Melbourne in 2016, killing eight people and sending some 8,000 to the emergency room.

2016年，墨爾本再次發(fā)生類似事件，造成8人死亡，約8000人被送往急診室。

No one understood why this might happen since rain typically washes pollen out of the air. In addition, the size of the rye pollen spores in the Melbourne area were too large to be easily inhaled and typically lodged in the sinuses before they could reach the lungs.

沒有人知道為什么會發(fā)生這種情況，因為雨水通常會沖走空氣中的花粉。此外，墨爾本地區(qū)的黑麥花粉孢子體積太大，不容易被吸入，通常在到達肺部之前就停留在鼻竇里。

So why would a rare storm with that type of pollen cause such an extreme reaction?

那么，為什么帶有這種花粉的罕見風暴會引起如此極端的反應呢?

University of Georgia researchers studied the Australian event and published a paper the following year. They found that downdrafts of cold air inside a storm send mold and pollen high into the clouds where humidity levels and lighting rupture the spores. Returning to the ground as much smaller fragments, the tiny particles can then pass through the nose and sinuses into the lungs.

喬治亞大學的研究人員研究了澳大利亞的這一事件，并在第二年發(fā)表了一篇論文。他們發(fā)現(xiàn)，風暴中的冷空氣下降氣流將霉菌和花粉送入云層，而云層中的濕度和光照會使孢子破裂。這些小顆?；氐降孛婧?，可以通過鼻子和鼻竇進入肺部。

"In our study we found that pollen didn't rise in the days before the thunderstorm, which makes it odd to then attribute the increase in hospitalizations to pollen, at least exclusively," Jena said.

“在我們的研究中，我們發(fā)現(xiàn)花粉量在雷暴前幾天并沒有增加，這使得將住院人數(shù)的增加至少完全歸因于花粉的說法很奇怪，”杰納說。

Nor did levels of nitrogen dioxide, sulfur dioxide, carbon monoxide and ozone change in the days preceding a thunderstorm, Jena said. All levels, however, did drop after the storms ended.

杰納說，在雷暴前幾天，二氧化氮、二氧化硫、一氧化碳和臭氧的含量也沒有變化。然而，在風暴結束后，所有的水平都下降了。

"Prior studies suggest that rapid temperature increases can precipitate respiratory problems, and we observed changes in temperature in the days prior to thunderstorms," he added.

他補充說:“之前的研究表明，溫度快速上升會引發(fā)呼吸問題，而我們在雷暴前幾天觀察到了溫度的變化。”

"The last thing to note is that this was a study of thousands of thunderstorms occurring across the US, matched to high-frequency data on environmental parameters and hospitalizations, which makes these findings potentially more generalizable than previous studies on this topic," Jena said.

杰納說：“最后要注意的是，這是一項針對美國各地發(fā)生的數(shù)千次雷暴的研究，與環(huán)境參數(shù)和住院率的高頻數(shù)據(jù)相匹配，這使得這些發(fā)現(xiàn)可能比以前關于這個主題的研究更具普遍性。”