University of Campinas

Researchers have developed a new method to predict the financial impacts climate change will have on agriculture, which can help support food security and financial stability for countries increasingly prone to climate catastrophes. Researchers at the University of California San Diego School of Global Policy and Strategy have developed a new method to predict the financial impacts climate change will have on agriculture, which can help support food security and financial stability for countries increasingly prone to climate catastrophes. The study, published today in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, uses climate and agricultural data from Brazil. It finds that climate change has a cascading effect on farming, leading to increased loan defaults for one of the nation's largest public sector banks. Over the next three decades, climate-driven loan defaults could increase by up to 7%, according to the study. The projections in the paper revealed that although temperatures are rising everywhere, there is substantial variation in what that looks like from region to region, which underscores the need to build distinct types of physical and financial resilience. For example, parts of northern Brazil are predicted to have more dramatic seasonal swings around 2050, with heavier rainfall in winter and drier summers, so policymakers should be thinking about the need for water storage by building dams and reservoirs as well as increasing groundwater storage capacity. Conversely, central Brazil may have fairly steady weather, but will have higher overall temperatures, pointing to a need for heat-resistant crops. The authors of the paper used a statistical approach pairing past climate data in Brazil with information on crop productivity, farm revenue and agricultural loan performance. They combined this data with climate simulations to predict future weather conditions and their impacts on farming and how those changes will affect financial institutions. "A difficulty in studying climate impacts on agriculture is that there are all sorts of adaptations happening all the time that aren't easily observed, but are really important for understanding vulnerability and how risk is changing," said coauthor Jennifer Burney, professor of environmental science at UC San Diego's School of Global Policy and Strategy and Scripps Institution of Oceanography. "We were able to distinguish signals from different types of climate impacts and which ones led to this larger financial risk." Systematic thinking about building resilience against climate change around the globe A key objective of the research is to support resilient food security under a changing climate, which requires understanding of when small climate shifts might have outsized impacts, spilling across regions or into other sectors through institutions like trade and banking. Understanding the systemic risk posed by climate change is especially helpful for policymakers and disaster relief agencies, as climate change has increasingly become a national security threat. To that end, the statistical approach developed in the study could be applied around the globe. "The technique we developed will help populations identify where they are most vulnerable, how climate change will hurt them the most economically and what institutions they should focus on to build resilience," said study coauthor Craig McIntosh, professor of economics at the School of Global Policy and Strategy. For example, some governments in the Western Pacific region buy extra food on the global market in emerging El Niño years, when their own crop productivity suffers. The statistical approach used in the study could help governments around the world understand their own climate conditions and whether local, regional or international institutions will be best placed to address them. The research could be especially helpful with the development of the loss and damage fund established by the United Nations in 2022. The fund is designed to help compensate developing nations that have contributed the least to the climate crisis but have been facing the brunt of its devastating floods, drought and sea-level rise. "Our technique could help countries think about where the resilience returns would be highest for the money spent," said Krislert Samphantharak, professor of economics at the School of Global Policy and Strategy. "This technique also helps to identify where international reinsurance might be needed." The "Empirical Modeling of Agricultural Climate Risk" study was also coauthored by Bruno Lopez-Videla, who earned a Ph.D. in economics from UC San Diego in 2021 and Alexandre Gori Maia of the Universidade Estadual de Campinas in Brazil.

TFOS Report on Vision-Compromising Challenges Announced BOSTON, April 18, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- Today the Tear Film & Ocular Surface Society (TFOS), a world leader in eye health research and education, announced their new global Workshop report, entitled " A Lifestyle Epidemic: Ocular Surface Disease," which will be published this quarter in The Ocular Surface journal. The World Health Organization indicates that eye problems are increasingly linked to lifestyle choices.1 "Lifestyle defines the way in which a person lives. The way we live can impact our environment, but it can also affect our health," explained Dr. Jennifer Craig, Professor, Department of Ophthalmology and Head of the Ocular Surface Laboratory at the University of Auckland in New Zealand. "This new TFOS Report focuses on the direct and indirect impacts that everyday lifestyle choices and challenges have on ocular surface health – from screen time, to our beauty routines, to our nutrition, to where we live," stated Amy Gallant Sullivan, Executive Director, TFOS. "It is our mission as a world-renowned scientific society to advance our understanding and educate the public and professionals about how our choices impact our eyes, our vision, and our quality of life," commented Dr. Monica Alves, Professor, Department of Ophthalmology, University of Campinas, Brazil. "The study of ocular surface disease has evolved dramatically in the last years and TFOS has played an instrumental role in this transformation," explained Dr. Jennifer Craig "TFOS Reports play a critical role in consolidating and translating published science and literature while inspiring future research by identifying the gaps and unmet needs." "This TFOS Lifestyle Workshop report involved 158 experts from 38 countries around the world, required almost three years to complete, and was committed to an evidence-based approach and a process of open communication, dialogue and transparency, in order to achieve a consensus concerning lifestyle choices and ocular surface disease," concluded David A. Sullivan, PhD, Founder, TFOS. ABOUT TFOS Founded in 2000, the Tear Film & Ocular Surface Society is a world leader in eye health education headquartered in Boston, USA. A 501(c)3 non-profit foundation, TFOS is dedicated to advancing the research, literacy, and educational aspects of the scientific field of the eye's surface. More information about TFOS and the Report is available at: . Note to Editors: The TFOS Lifestyle Workshop was supported by unrestricted donations to TFOS from Alcon, Allergan an AbbVie Company, Bausch + Lomb, Bruder Healthcare, CooperVision, CSL Seqirus, Dompé, ESSIRI Labs, ESW-Vision, Eye Drop Shop, I-MED Pharma, KALA Pharmaceuticals, Laboratoires Théa, Santen, Novartis, Shenyang Sinqi Pharmaceutical, Sun Pharmaceutical Industries, Tarsus Pharmaceuticals, Trukera Medical and URSAPHARM. 1. World report on vision (2019) Retrieved from Tear Film & Ocular Surface Society Boston, MA - 02113 USA Amy Gallant Sullivan Executive Director +1617-605-7128 [email protected] @Eyeppl SOURCE TFOS - Tear Film & Ocular Surface Society

Study Finds Brain Changes in People with Anxiety, Depression Symptoms MINNEAPOLIS, Feb. 20, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- People with long COVID who experience anxiety and depression months after a mild case of COVID-19 may have brain changes that affect the function and structure of the brain, according to a preliminary study released February 20, 2023, that will be presented at the American Academy of Neurology's 75th Annual Meeting being held in person in Boston and live online from April 22-27, 2023. "There is still much to learn about long COVID, which includes a wide range of health problems, including anxiety and depression, months after infection," said Clarissa Yasuda, MD, PhD, of the University of Campinas in São Paulo, Brazil. "Our findings are concerning, as even people with a mild case of COVID-19 are showing changes in their brains months later. More studies are needed to hopefully identify treatments to prevent any long-term effects on people's quality of life." The study involved 254 people with an average age of 41 who had a mild COVID-19 infection an average of three months earlier. Participants completed tests to assess symptoms of depression and anxiety. A total of 102 people had symptoms of both anxiety and depression and 152 people had no symptoms. Participants also had brain scans. Researchers looked at damage to the brain's gray matter to determine if there was brain shrinkage. They also compared the brain scans of the people with COVID-19 with the scans of 148 people who did not have a COVID-19 infection. The people with COVID-19 and anxiety and depression had shrinkage in the limbic area of the brain, which plays a role in memory and emotional processing, while the people who had COVID-19 without anxiety and depression and the people without COVID-19 had no brain shrinkage. Researchers also looked at brain function and changes in connectivity—how the brain communicates—between areas of the brain. Using a special type of software to analyze brain networks with resting-state brain activity, they looked at 84 people from the asymptomatic group, 70 people from the anxiety and depression group, and 90 people who did not have COVID-19. Researchers found that the group with both symptoms of anxiety and depression had widespread functional changes in each of the 12 networks that were tested, while the group without symptoms showed changes in only five networks. "Our results suggest a severe pattern of changes in how the brain communicates as well as its structure, mainly in people with anxiety and depression with long COVID syndrome, which affects so many people," Yasuda added. "The magnitude of these changes suggests that they could lead to problems with memory and thinking skills, so we need to be exploring holistic treatments even for people mildly affected by COVID-19." A limitation of the study was that symptoms of anxiety and depression were self-reported, so people may have misjudged or misreported symptoms. The study was supported by the São Paulo Research Foundation. Learn more about brain health at BrainandLife.org, home of the American Academy of Neurology's free patient and caregiver magazine focused on the intersection of neurologic disease and brain health. Follow Brain & Life® on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. When posting to social media channels about this research, we encourage you to use the American Academy of Neurology's Annual Meeting hashtag #AANAM. The American Academy of Neurology is the world's largest association of neurologists and neuroscience professionals, with over 38,000 members. The AAN is dedicated to promoting the highest quality patient-centered neurologic care. A neurologist is a doctor with specialized training in diagnosing, treating and managing disorders of the brain and nervous system such as Alzheimer's disease, stroke, migraine, multiple sclerosis, concussion, Parkinson's disease and epilepsy. For more information about the American Academy of Neurology, visit AAN.com or find us on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn and YouTube. SOURCE American Academy of Neurology