Key findings
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Climate change could be a factor in increased salmonella cases
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High humidity makes it easier for salmonella to survive in leafy vegetables
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Moisture-related diseases also increase the survival of Salmonella
THURSDAY, Aug. 29, 2024 (HealthDay News) — Climate change will increase the risk of salmonella poisoning from contaminated food, a new study warns.
Increased humidity makes leafy vegetables like lettuce more likely to suffer from bacterial diseases such as leaf spot, researchers reported August 29 in the journal Applied and Environmental Microbiology.
These bacterial diseases, in turn, could help salmonella survive in leafy vegetables, increasing the risk of foodborne illness in humans, it said.
“The effects of increased humidity on healthy plants also promote the survival of Salmonella on plants, which would make climate change a food safety issue,” said researcher Jeri Barak, a professor of plant pathology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
“Controlling plant diseases such as bacterial leaf spot in lettuce is also important for food safety,” Barak said in a journal press release. “Climate change will increase the risk of foodborne diseases from eating raw produce.”
In the United States, 1.2 million people become ill with salmonella each year, researchers reported in background information. The most common source of infection is fresh produce, as salmonella survives on many crops and persists in soil for long periods of time.
In laboratory experiments, researchers varied the timing of exposure of leafy vegetables to a bacterium that causes leaf spot or to the bacterium Salmonella.
Researchers found that high humidity promotes the ability of salmonella to multiply rapidly in lettuce.
The results show that moisture also promotes leaf spot formation, which in turn further increases the ability of Salmonella to survive and spread in romaine lettuce.
More information
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has further information on salmonella.
SOURCE: American Society for Microbiology, press release, August 29, 2024
What this means for you
Leafy vegetables may pose a greater salmonella risk in the future as climate change continues to increase humidity in agricultural areas.
