Sun's out, appendix out! As the temperature rises, so does appendicitis

Embargoed until: Publicly released: 2022-10-04 02:00

International

What does this mean?

Jump to: MultimediaAttachmentsExpert Reaction

US scientists say you're more likely to get appendicitis in warmer weather, whatever the season. They looked at health records of 689,917 patients and found that for every 5.56°C increase in temperature, the incidence of appendicitis increased by 1.3% at temperatures of 10.56°C or lower, and increased by 2.9% at temperatures higher than 10.56 °C. In addition, when a temperature increase was greater than 5.56°C, the incidence of appendicitis increased by 3.3%. Although this type of study cannot show temperature rises actually caused the increase in appendicitis, the findings back up previous reports of higher incidence during the summer months, the researchers say. They hope their findings will help in figuring out how and why appendicitis occurs.