SARASOTA, Fla. — A new study is giving more insight into just how bad red tide can affect your health, especially if you have asthma, chronic fatigue syndrome or are prone to migraines.
Researchers at the Roskamp Institute say they found people in the southwest Florida region have been suffering from neurological effects like headaches, dizziness and numbness from airborne toxins. People who eat contaminated shellfish or seafood have also experienced similar symptoms, but those who already are prone to certain symptoms like migraines and chronic fatigue might experience them even more.
The study, funded by National Institute of Environmental Health, included 250 community volunteers from Sarasota, Manatee, Lee, Charlotte and Collier counties.
Dr. Barbara Kirkpatrick is the Senior Advisor for the Gulf of Mexico Coastal Ocean Observation System and has been researching how red tide impacted asthma patients over the last decade, as well as how it impacts healthy people.
“What we’ve learned is that people respond very differently to these inhaled toxins, and it’s important then for people to know that when we have a bloom, when there are toxins present at the beach or in the near-shore environment, they need to adjust their activities based on if they’re highly reactive and highly impacted by these toxins,” Kirkpatrick said.
Laila Abdullah is a senior scientist at the Roskamp Institute. She said some of the people in the study exhibited signs of neurotoxic shellfish poisoning, but they hadn’t eaten any contaminated food.
“A number of individuals were reporting symptoms and particularly those who had a previous history of migraines and chronic fatigue syndrome are tending to report more of those types of symptoms,” Abdullah said.
During the heat of the summer, many people tend to stay inside in their air-conditioned homes, but when it’s fall, more people will want to spend more time outside, according to Abdullah.
“It’s not hard this time of year to make sure you stay in air conditioning, but hopefully, in the next few months, the weather’s going to change and everyone’s going to be really interested in opening their sliders and getting fresh air,” she said.
That can be problematic if there’s a red tide bloom, Abdullah said. She advises people to wear a N-95 mask while outdoors and check the wesbite redtideforecast.com, which updates the red tide forecasts every three hours so people can adjust what to do outside when toxins are in the air. As of Tuesday, the levels are very low.
Abdullah also said with more people moving here, it’s important to learn more about what causes the symptoms and what levels of the toxins make people reactive.