Under the Weather: How Weather and Climate Affect Our Health

An entertaining and fact-filled look at the links between health and climate, this book details both short-term symptoms and life-threatening conditions that can be aggravated by the weather. It explains how to be protected from the extremes of weather as well as how to ease weather-related symptoms. Startling weather-related observations include evidence that the onset of labor is more common when barometric pressure is falling; migraines can be made much worse by cold and winds; deaths from heart disease are more common on days when there are blustery winds bringing changeable temperatures; changes in humidity can cause scar tissue to ache; and patients with noninherited forms of schizophrenia are twice as likely to have been born in extreme weather conditions as those with the inherited form of the disease.

Pat Thomas has written 25 books, including Cleaning Yourself to Death, Overcoming Headaches, and Alternative Therapies for Pregnancy and Birth. She regularly writes health columns for Here's Health, The Guardian, and Health and Fitness.