Well + Being
These small daily actions may affect how your body manages heat
By Amudalat Ajasa & Kasha Patel The Washington Post
Published June 21, 2024
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As the summer sun beats down, many people may grab a frozen margarita or blast the fan. But, in some cases, those attempts at relief may not help.
Some activities that you think provide relief may end up making you feel hotter. Overheated individuals can experience issues as relatively minor as heat cramps to more severe situations like heat stroke, which can be fatal. Although the deaths are often preventable, extreme heat is the No. 1 weather-related killer in the United States.
The first major heat wave of the summer is strengthening over the eastern U.S. this week, putting tens of millions of people under heat alerts. Parts of the Northeast are expected to reach temperatures in the triple digits, and some cities may see their hottest days in decades.
In the face of intense heat, experts say small daily actions - from the food, drinks or medications we ingest to how we attempt to cool down - could affect how our bodies dissipate heat. Here are some risks to be aware of, and tips that may help you stay cool during an extreme heat wave.
1. Drinking alcohol can be risky in the heat
The hiss-crack-pop of an ice-cold seltzer accompanied by the glass clinks of chilled beers may sound like the perfect solution to a sweltering evening with friends, but the punishing effects from summer's heat could be amplified by your favorite alcoholic beverage, experts say.
Alcohol opens the blood vessels in your skin, allowing the blood to be more susceptible to external temperatures. As the blood rushes to the surface, it is pulled away from your core, where it is warmed by the outside temperatures. The warmed blood is then brought back to your core where it increases your overall body temperature, said Chris Ziebell, medical director of Houston Methodist's emergency department. In extreme heat, this can increase the risk of heat illnes
s - heat cramps, heat exhaustion, and in severe cases, heat stroke. "It opens up the arteries in the skin, which allows more direct contact of the blood with whatever the outside temperature is ... both in terms of heat and in terms of cold," Ziebell said.
Alcohol is also a diuretic, which leads to increased urination and potentially dehydration.
Ziebell explained that alcohol exacerbates fluid loss, which makes it harder to sweat. The inability to sweat can be the difference between milder heat exhaustion and a more fatal heat stroke.
"You sweat until you run out of sweat. Then you've lost your last bit of capacity to cool down," Ziebell said. "And that's what makes the temperatures go way, way up."
2. It helps to turn to hydrating foods
As the heat is beating down, it's important to watch what and how much we eat. Our eating habits can make us feel hotter.
Experts suggest avoiding big meals or fatty and fried foods because they can be harder to digest. Digesting such food can be difficult for the body to break down and can create heat, which is the last thing our bodies to experience during a heat wave.
Instead, experts say to eat lighter meals and more frequently. They also recommend eating hydrating foods that are easy to digest such as fruits and vegetables.
The vast majority of our hydration comes from our food, said Leigh Frame, director of integrative medicine at George Washington University. In the summer, our bodies are naturally drawn to foods high in water content - like watermelon and cucumbers.
Another tip: Think about whether you've hydrated enough.
"Because most of our hydration comes from our food. Our body actually sends a hunger signal if we are dehydrated. So if you're feeling hungry, you may actually be dehydrated," Frame said.
But experts say be wary of changing your diet drastically all at once. If you start eating fruits or vegetables your body isn't used to, your body could react poorly and could cause gastrointestinal issues.
3. Make sure your fan is working for you
In any intense heat wave, a preferred solution is to stay in a cool or air-conditioned place. But if you're outside or away from your air conditioner, fans are an excellent choice for cooling down - but only if it's not too hot and humid.
Electric fans can play an important role in reducing our body temperature. When people are feeling hot, our bodies primarily cool themselves by sweating. As water evaporates from our skin, the surface of our skin cools. Electric fans promote sweating by moving cooler air over our skin, aiding evaporation.
But fans start to become inefficient when the air is very humid (above 50 percent, for instance) and the temperature is in the triple digits.
"If someone is outside and it's incredibly hot and humid, sitting in the shade running an electric fan might not help," said Luke Parsons, a climate scientist at the Nature Conservancy, who has published research on safe use of fans. "If it's too hot and humid, sitting in front of a fan outside could in fact make you hotter."
The World Health Organization and researchers said electric fans should only be used when temperatures are below 104 degrees Fahrenheit (40 degrees Celsius) for young, healthy adults. At this temperature, the fan would be pushing around air that is much hotter than our core body temperatures and heating us. (Older adults, especially those on sweat-inhibiting medications, may find fans are less effective for them a few degrees lower.)
Parsons said to use other cooling options to maintain a stable core body temperature, like moving inside to air conditioning, sitting in a cool water bath or visiting a cooling center. An energy-efficiency tip: If you move inside, keep in mind your fan can also be combined with your indoor air conditioner at a higher temperature to reduce your energy use as well.
4. When excess caffeine can make you feel worse
You might want to rethink that second energy drink or iced coffee in extreme heat, too.
Drinks with high levels of caffeine stimulate movement which warms up the body and can dehydrate the body through increased urination. According to Geoffrey Comp, an emergency medicine physician at Valleywise Health medical center in Phoenix, the jittery feeling some get from drinking high levels of caffeine, and the increased movement as a result, generates more heat.
"Too much caffeine without having enough water or electrolyte replacement plus exertion outside, can increase the amount of heat generation," Comp said.
5. Be mindful of how medications affect your response to heat
Of course, medical professionals urge patients to continue taking their daily prescribed medications. But as temperatures soar, the side effect of different medications can affect your body heat.
Different medicines ranging from over-the-counter medicines to prescription medications can impact your body heat by either "preventing your body from getting rid of heat [or] producing heat, both of these side effects can result in a higher body temperature," Comp said.
Antihistamines, like Benadryl and other allergy-relief medicines, cause some tightening of the blood vessels near our skin which can limit the way the body dissipates heat. Over-the-counter weight loss supplements increase heat production in the body. Laxatives increase the amount of water leaving your body through waste, leaving less water reserves for sweating and cooling, Comp said.
Beta blockers, used by people with heart conditions, decrease the heart rate which blocks the ability for heat exchange at the skin's surface, keeping core temperatures warm. Some prescription amphetamines, like Ritalin and Adderall, increase heat production as it stimulates the body.
"Yes, some of these medications can change how our body manages heat. But in the long term it's still much more important to be taking your medications on a daily basis as prescribed than to maybe hold off because you're concerned that it's a hot day today," Comp said.
Diuretic medicines, used for high blood pressure or other heart conditions, work by helping people get rid of excess fluid. The medicines are basically water pills, said Ziebell. But increased urination and loss of fluid during extreme heat can more rapidly lead to dehydration.
"If you're peeing out excess fluid, and then you're also sweating out excess fluid, eventually you run out of excess fluid," Ziebell said.
Some people can become hypothermic due to side effects of a medicine, Ziebell said. Some psychiatric medicines make the muscles quiver, causing the muscles to generate heat.
"These people come in [with] really dangerously high body temperatures, and we have to cool them off aggressively," Ziebell said.
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