Instructing people to avoid heat exposure completely negates their innate and protective ability to acclimate to heat. Such guidance increases the risk of heat-related illness or death if/when they experience unanticipated heat exposure from an AC failure, power outage, or other causes. Thankfully, science-based guidance about the protective benefits of safe acclimation to heat already exists for heat-challenged workers and athletes. Adapting and publicizing that guidance for the general public, regardless of age or physical fitness level, would educate and empower people to safely protect themselves from heat-related illness using controlled and self-limited exposures to heat. Such generalized guidance must emphasize individualization to physical and medical limitations.
FORT WORTH, Texas, June 13, 2023 /PRNewswire-PRWeb/ -- Heat-related injury and death continue to increase in association with extreme heat events provoked by climate change. Projections portend the escalation of this trend. (https://www.studiovidenda.com/)
Despite the well-established protection from heat offered by acclimation/acclimatization, most public health information sources advise people to avoid heat entirely to mitigate the risk of heat-related illness. "We have a primordial, powerful, easily accessed, cost-free, yet underutilized tool to increase thermal tolerance and reduce the incidence of heat-related medical events: heat," says Dr. Donald Watenpaugh, senior author of the recently published article, "Reduce Heat-related Illness and Death with a Tool at Our Doorstep."
(https://www.researchgate.net/publication/371409377_Reduce_Heat-related_Illness_and_Death_with_a_Tool_at_Our_Doorstep).
Dr. Watenpaugh and his co-author, Dr. Robert Carter III, offers the following two simple and effective public health recommendations:
1. Do not altogether avoid exposure to heat. "Instructing people to avoid heat exposure completely negates their innate and protective ability to acclimate to the heat," says Dr. Watenpaugh. "Such guidance increases the risk of heat-related illness or death if/when they experience unanticipated heat exposure from an air conditioning failure, power outage, or other causes," says Dr. Carter.
2. Adapt and publicize safe ways for the public to heat acclimate. "We must educate and empower people to safely protect themselves from heat-related illness using controlled and self-limited exposures to heat," says Dr. Watenpaugh. "Such generalized guidance must emphasize individualization to physical and medical limitations," says Dr. Carter.
About the Author
Dr. Robert Carter III is a Colonel in the U.S. Army, an expert in human performance and physiology, and an adjunct professor of Emergency Medicine at the University of Texas Health, San Antonio, Texas.
Dr. Donald Watenpaugh is an Adjunct Professor in the Department of Physiology and Anatomy, University of North Texas Health Science Center, Fort Worth, Texas, and the Department of Bioengineering, University of Texas at Arlington. He is the Chief Creative Officer for Studio Videnda. Dr. Watenpaug's scientific mantra is to let the data decide the experimental outcome, and in the art world, he asserts: Let the data inspire and drive the artistic outcome.
Media Contact
Dr. Donald Watenpaugh, https://www.studiovidenda.com/, 817 781 8399, [email protected]
SOURCE https://www.studiovidenda.com/
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