EFFECT OF WEATHER CONDITIONS ON PATIENTS WITH CARDIOVASCULAR DISEASES: MAIN DIRECTIONS OF RESEARCH AND MAJOR ISSUES

The article presents a review of the literature devoted to the analysis of the influence of weather conditions and helio/geophysical factors on patients with cardiovascular diseases. The main regularities of the influence of meteorological factors on public health, which are discussed in most publications, are the dependencies on 1) the season of the year, 2) the outside air temperature, 3) atmospheric pressure, 4) air humidity, 5) solar activity and changes of the electromagnetic field of the Earth. Particular attention is paid to the influence of heat waves and cold spells (prolonged periods of extreme heat or cold). In addition, the article discusses the impact on meteosensitivity of sex and age of patients. Most of the studies investigating the relationship between morbidity and weather factors are retrospective statistical analysis of the number of emergency medical calls or an analysis of mortality data. At the same time, the results of the analysis of the influence of the factors of both terrestrial and cosmic weather, obtained in various studies, are highly contradictory. Attention is drawn to the fact that this ambiguity of the results can be caused by the multifaceted influence of weather conditions and the lack of knowledge of the mechanisms that determine this influence, as well as the significant methodological problems in many studies related to insufficiently large sample sizes, inadequate statistical analysis, a relatively short period observation. In addition, a significant problem is associated with the paradoxical nature of the biological effect of weak low-frequency magnetic fields, including the Earth's magnetic field, whose energy is much less than the characteristic energy of biochemical transformations. The absence of reliably revealed regularities restrains further research aimed at revealing the subtle physiological mechanisms that cause the reactions of the human body to change the factors of terrestrial and cosmic weather. The solution, apparently, can be a comprehensive approach to the analysis of accumulated data involving physicians, biologists, physicists and mathematicians and the use of adequate approaches developed in different fields of science.