Health

When heat waves turns deadly: How extreme temperatures affect the human body

Published

7 months ago

June 22, 2024

When heat waves turns deadly: How extreme temperatures affect the human body

As temperatures and humidity soar outside, what’s happening inside the human body can become a life-or-death battle decided by just a few degrees.

The critical danger point outdoors for illness and death from relentless heat is several degrees lower than experts once thought, say researchers who put people in hot boxes to see what happens to them.

With much of the United States, Mexico, India and the Middle East suffering through blistering heat waves, worsened by climate change, several doctors, physiologists and other experts explained to The Associated Press what happens to the human body in such heat.

HEAT WAVE LEAVES AT LEAST 125 DEAD IN MEXICO

Heat waves can raise your body temperature

The body’s resting core temperature is typically about 98.6 degrees Fahrenheit.

That’s only 7 degrees away from catastrophe in the form of heatstroke, said Ollie Jay, a professor of heat and health at the University of Sydney in Australia, where he runs the thermoergonomics laboratory.

Dr. Neil Gandhi, emergency medicine director at Houston Methodist Hospital, said during heat waves anyone who comes in with a fever of 102 or higher and no clear source of infection will be looked at for heat exhaustion or the more severe heatstroke.

A man pours cold water onto his head to cool off on a sweltering hot day in the Mediterranean Sea in Beirut, Lebanon, on July 16, 2023. As temperatures and humidity soar, what’s happening inside the human body can become a life-or-death battle decided by just a few degrees. (AP Photo/Hassan Ammar, File)

“We routinely will see core temperatures greater than 104, 105 degrees during some of the heat episodes,” Gandhi said. Another degree or three and such a patient is at high risk of death, he said.

How heat kills

Heat kills in three main ways, Jay said. The usual first suspect is heatstroke — critical increases in body temperature that cause organs to fail.

When inner body temperature gets too hot, the body redirects blood flow toward the skin to cool down, Jay said. But that diverts blood and oxygen away from the stomach and intestines, and can allow toxins normally confined to the gut area to leak into circulation.

“That sets off a cascade of effects,” Jay said. “Clotting around the body and multiple organ failure and, ultimately, death.”

But the bigger killer in heat is the strain on the heart, especially for people who have cardiovascular disease, Jay said.

It again starts with blood rushing to the skin to help shed core heat. That causes blood pressure to drop. The heart responds by trying to pump more blood to keep you from passing out.

“You’re asking the heart to do a lot more work than it usually has to do,” Jay said. For someone with a heart condition “it’s like running for a bus with dodgy (hamstring). Something’s going to give.”

7 WAYS TO STAY SAFE IN THIS SUMMER’S SCORCHING HEAT

The third main way is dangerous dehydration. As people sweat, they lose liquids to a point that can severely stress kidneys, Jay said.

Many people may not realize their danger, Houston’s Gandhi said.

Dehydration can progress into shock, causing organs to shut down from lack of blood, oxygen and nutrients, leading to seizures and death, said Dr. Renee Salas, a Harvard University professor of public health and an emergency room physician at Massachusetts General Hospital.

“Dehydration can be very dangerous and even deadly for everyone if it gets bad enough — but it is especially dangerous for those with medical conditions and on certain medications,” Salas said.

Dehydration also reduces blood flow and magnifies cardiac problems, Jay said.

Intense heat can ‘fry’ your brain

Heat also affects the brain. It can cause a person to have confusion, or trouble thinking, several doctors said.

“One of the first symptoms you’re getting into trouble with the heat is if you get confused,” said University of Washington public health and climate professor Kris Ebi. That’s little help as a symptom because the person suffering from the heat is unlikely to recognize it, she said. And it becomes a bigger problem as people age.

One of the classic definitions of heat stroke is a core body temperature of 104 degrees “coupled with cognitive dysfunction,” said Pennsylvania State University physiology professor W. Larry Kenney.

Heat and humidity are a dangerous duo

Some scientists use a complicated outside temperature measurement called wet bulb globe temperature, which takes into account humidity, solar radiation and wind. In the past, it was thought that a wet-bulb reading of 95 Fahrenheit was the point when the body started having trouble, said Kenney, who also runs a hot box lab and has done nearly 600 tests with volunteers.

His tests show the wet-bulb danger point is closer to 87. That’s a figure that has started to appear in the Middle East, he said.

And that’s just for young healthy people. For older people, the danger point is a wet bulb temperature of 82, he said.

“Humid heat waves kill a lot more people than dry heat waves,” Kenney said.

When Kenney tested young and old people in dry heat, young volunteers could function until 125.6 degrees, while the elderly had to stop at 109.4. With high or moderate humidity, the people could not function at nearly as high a temperature, he said.

“Humidity impacts the ability of sweat to evaporate,” Jay said.

How to cool down heat exhaustion patients

Heatstroke is an emergency, and medical workers try to cool a victim down within 30 minutes, Salas said.

The best way: Cold water immersion. Basically, “you drop them in a water bucket,” Salas said.

But those aren’t always around. So emergency rooms pump patients with cool fluids intravenously, spray them with misters, put ice packs in armpits and groins and place them on a chilling mat with cold water running inside it.

Sometimes it doesn’t work.

“We call it the silent killer because it’s not this kind of visually dramatic event,” Jay said. “It’s insidious. It’s hidden.”

Health

How The Great British Bake Off Host Alison Hammond Lost 150 Lbs Naturally

Published

2 hours ago

January 12, 2025

Press Room

How The Great British Bake Off Host Alison Hammond Lost 150 Lbs Naturally

Alison Hammond’s Weight Loss: How She Shed 150 Lbs | Woman’s World

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Health

One state leads country in human bird flu with nearly 40 confirmed cases

Published

2 hours ago

January 12, 2025

Press Room

One state leads country in human bird flu with nearly 40 confirmed cases

A child in California is presumed to have H5N1 bird flu, according to the San Francisco Department of Public Health (SFDPH).

As of Dec. 23, there had been 36 confirmed human cases of bird flu in the state, according to the California Department of Public Health (CDPH).

This represents more than half of the human cases in the country.

LOUISIANA REPORTS FIRST BIRD FLU-RELATED HUMAN DEATH IN US

The latest pediatric patient, who lives in San Francisco, experienced fever and conjunctivitis (pink eye) as a result of the infection.

The unnamed patient was not hospitalized and has fully recovered, according to the SFDPH.

A child in California is presumed to have H5N1 bird flu, according to the San Francisco Department of Public Health. (iStock)

The child tested positive for bird flu at the SFDPH Public Health Laboratory. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) will perform additional tests to confirm the result.

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It is not yet known how the child was exposed to the virus and an investigation is ongoing.

“I want to assure everyone in our city that the risk to the general public is low, and there is no current evidence that the virus can be transmitted between people,” said Dr. Grant Colfax, director of health, in the press release.

BIRD FLU PATIENT HAD VIRUS MUTATIONS, SPARKING CONCERN ABOUT HUMAN SPREAD

“We will continue to investigate this presumptive case, and I am urging all San Franciscans to avoid direct contact with sick or dead birds, especially wild birds and poultry. Also, please avoid unpasteurized dairy products.”

Samuel Scarpino, director of AI and life sciences and professor of health sciences at Northeastern University in Boston, is calling for “decisive action” to protect individuals who may be in contact with infected livestock and also to alert the public about the risks associated with wild birds and infected backyard flocks.

An infectious diseases expert called for “decisive action” to alert the public about the risks associated with wild birds and infected backyard flocks. (iStock)

“While I agree that the risk to the broader public remains low, we continue to see signs of escalating risk associated with this outbreak,” he told Fox News Digital.

Experts have warned that the possibility of mutations in the virus could enable person-to-person transmission.

“While the H5N1 virus is currently thought to only transmit from animals to humans, multiple mutations that can enhance human-to-human transmission have been observed in the severely sick American,” Dr. Jacob Glanville, CEO of Centivax, a San Francisco biotechnology company, told Fox News Digital.

As of Jan. 10, there have been a total of 707 infected cattle in California, per reports from the California Department of Food and Agriculture. (iStock)

“This highlights the requirement for vigilance and preparation in the event that additional mutations create a human-transmissible pandemic strain.”

As of Jan. 10, there have been a total of 707 infected cattle in California, per reports from the California Department of Food and Agriculture (CDFA).

For more Health articles, visit www.foxnews.com/health

In the last 30 days alone, the virus has been confirmed in 84 dairy farms in the state.

Melissa Rudy is senior health editor and a member of the lifestyle team at Fox News Digital. Story tips can be sent to melissa.rudy@fox.com.

Health

Chronic Pain Afflicts Billions of People. It’s Time for a Revolution.

Published

13 hours ago

January 12, 2025

Press Room

Chronic Pain Afflicts Billions of People. It’s Time for a Revolution.

“In the beginning, everyone thought they were going to find this one breakthrough pain drug that would replace opioids,” Gereau said. Increasingly, though, it’s looking like chronic pain, like cancer, could end up having a range of genetic and cellular drivers that vary both by condition and by the particular makeup of the person experiencing it. “What we’re learning is that pain is not just one thing,” Gereau added. “It’s a thousand different things, all called ‘pain.’”

For patients, too, the landscape of chronic pain is wildly varied. Some people endure a miserable year of low-back pain, only to have it vanish for no clear reason. Others aren’t so lucky. A friend of a friend spent five years with extreme pain in his arm and face after roughhousing with his son. He had to stop working, couldn’t drive, couldn’t even ride in a car without a neck brace. His doctors prescribed endless medications: the maximum dose of gabapentin, plus duloxetine and others. At one point, he admitted himself to a psychiatric ward, because his pain was so bad that he’d become suicidal. There, he met other people who also became suicidal after years of living with terrible pain day in and day out.

The thing that makes chronic pain so awful is that it’s chronic: a grinding distress that never ends. For those with extreme pain, that’s easy to understand. But even less severe cases can be miserable. A pain rating of 3 or 4 out of 10 sounds mild, but having it almost all the time is grueling — and limiting. Unlike a broken arm, which gets better, or tendinitis, which hurts mostly in response to overuse, chronic pain makes your whole world shrink. It’s harder to work, and to exercise, and even to do the many smaller things that make life rewarding and rich.

It’s also lonely. When my arms first went crazy, I could barely function. But even after the worst had passed, I saw friends rarely; I still couldn’t drive more than a few minutes, or sit comfortably in a chair, and I felt guilty inviting people over when there wasn’t anything to do. As Christin Veasley, director and co-founder of the Chronic Pain Research Alliance, puts it: “With acute pain, medications, if you take them, they get you over a hump, and you go on your way. What people don’t realize is that when you have chronic pain, even if you’re also taking meds, you rarely feel like you were before. At best, they can reduce your pain, but usually don’t eliminate it.”

A cruel Catch-22 around chronic pain is that it often leads to anxiety and depression, both of which can make pain worse. That’s partly because focusing on a thing can reinforce it, but also because emotional states have physical effects. Both anxiety and depression are known to increase inflammation, which can also worsen pain. As a result, pain management often includes cognitive behavioral therapy, meditation practice or other coping skills. But while those tools are vital, it’s notoriously hard to reprogram our reactions. Our minds and bodies have evolved both to anticipate pain and to remember it, making it hard not to worry. And because chronic pain is so uncomfortable and isolating, it’s also depressing.