The Telegraph
Reserachers found that moderately hot or cold weather accounts for seven times as many deaths as extreme temperatures.
Cold weather kills twenty times as many people as hot weather, according to an international study.
The findings, published in The Lancet, also reveal that deaths due to moderately hot or cold weather substantially exceed those resulting from extreme heat waves or cold spells.
Researchers analysed more than 74 million deaths in 384 locations across 13 countries, including the UK.
Lead author Doctor Antonio Gasparrini, from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, said: “It’s often assumed that extreme weather causes the majority of deaths, with most previous research focusing on the effects of extreme heat waves.
“Our findings, from an analysis of the largest dataset of temperature-related deaths ever collected, show that the majority of these deaths actually happen on moderately hot and cold days, with most deaths caused by moderately cold temperatures.”
The study analysed 74,225,200 deaths between 1985 and 2012 in 13 countries with a wide range of climates, from cold to subtropical.
The countries involved were Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, Italy, Japan, South Korea, Spain, Sweden, Taiwan, Thailand, UK, and USA.