Climate change is bad for your kidneys

Thousands of people labouring in hot temperatures have been succumbing to a deadly kidney disease, and as the planet warms, the problem is likely to spread

A mysterious and deadly kidney disease has been plaguing labourers in the sugar fields of Central America. In the past 20 years, some 20,000 workers have died of the disease, and the crisis has been growing worse.

At first the epidemic was thought to be caused by chemicals such as pesticides, but the disease only affected labourers in coastal areas – those working at higher altitude in hills were largely unaffected.

Related: Florida wakes up to climate change