Preventing heat stroke and blood pressure control.

0:00 Speaker 1 What is today is doctor Peter Michlos, And it is very hot out. No matter where you are, it is hot. And doctor Milos, let me tell you, let me ask you, how do we survive this heat?

0:15 Speaker 2 Well? One of the most important things. People don’t realize that there are many deaths around the United States and the world from something called heat stroke. And we’re not really designed to live in places like Arizona where it goes to one hundred and ten degrees and without the artificial climate environment by the great invention of air conditioning,

0:33 humans wouldn’t survive too well in those areas and heat stroke. What happens is we become dehydrated because our cooling mechanism is that we sweat to evaporate fluid off the surface of our skin to cool our bodies down. But there’s a limit to that and also a limit to how much water we have in our body to extract, so

0:53 we become very dehydrated very quickly. Then we start getting headaches, cramps, we can become disoriented, eventually pass out, you can actually die. And that’s why it’s so important, especially in the heat and levil to leave pets or animals and of course children in cars. Even when the windows are open, temperatures inside a car can go up to one hundred and

1:11 twenty degrees. So we tell people that they need to drink more fluids. One of the reasons people get more heart attacks and strokes when they’re out playing tennis or playing golf, or when they’re inside these areas that are very hot, is that when you become dehydrated, your blood starts snicking up and it becomes like thicker, like half

1:33 and half and like honey, and that’s when you get more heart attacks and strokes because things clog up. And that’s why when you drink more fluid, your blood front like skim milk and it actually helps to prevent heart attacks and strokes. You can have the best cholesterol level in the world, but if your blood is sludging because

1:50 it’s totally dehydrated, it puts you at higher risk for some of these conditions. So when we encourage our people to please hydrate in the summer and try to drink things that have even some electrolytes, like for example, iced tea is a great summer drink. On Sweden, of course is better because we’ve talked about the hills of having

2:12 too much sugar, and also stay out of the sun where hats with a brim and people forget even little kids. We now know ultraviolet radiation is cumulative over a lifetime. We even on children start having them in the habit of wearing sunglasses to protect their eyes because that slows down long term formation of cataracts and other problems, and

2:30 of course put sps sunscreen on them, preferably those with more natural ingredients. Because we now know ultraviolet radiation is cumulative and can result in squamous cells, dasal cells, melanomas, which are skin cancers. There are things that we can do but hydration, stay in the shade. For older people, especially those with harder lung conditions, try to stay in

2:52 environments that are much cooler and more comfortable, because when people have heat stroke, their temperature goes as high as one hundred three degrees and in some emergency rooms they even have to put them in cooling blankets and ice blankets just to bring their temperature down. You can end up being in the hospital for two days, and after

3:09 you have heat stroke, it could take sometimes up to two months from your body to recover because the body and the brain do not like to be dehydrated. So please protect yourselves in the summer, stay cool, stay hydrated, and extreme.

3:25 Speaker 1 Heat doctor when he gets that hot out, I guess water is the is your best bet. Drink plenty of water and plenty of fluids to allow you to sweat things out. And what’s some maximum even if you go into pool and you feel cool, but the sun is beating down on you, what do you think there should

3:50 be the maximum amount of time it should spend out doors in the sun.

3:54 Speaker 2 Well, I would avoid between the peak hours of the sun between noon and three pm. That’s when we have solar maximum, and that is the worst time to be in And just because you’re in the pool and your lower body is the problem is that a lot of our heat is in our brain. Our brain does not

4:10 like to be heated up. So when the skull and the brain and the head and neck, which are a big portion of our body and very metabolically active, when they heat up, it confuses the body because your lower part might be in the water, but your upper part is being heated up and your brain is basically boiling.

4:27 And that’s what happens when we get heat and confusion. And that’s why some people actually get epileptic seizures like children who have very high fevers. The brain does not like high temperatures, So stay cool. Keep listening to WABC for more health tips on how to stay alive and stay healthy. And we’ve got to get through this warm season.

4:48 Speaker 1 And if you’re out here in the sun and you feel like you’re starting to get a headache or something, is that from your brain starting to get over hot.

4:57 Speaker 2 Yeah. Absolutely, that’s one of the warning signs when you start getting a little bit confused, you start feeling warm, do you start feeling muscle cramps in your legs, and you can even feel nauseous because it affects your stomach.

5:09 Blood is shifting around, trying to go to your skin and leaving your abdomen, and you basically are trying to turn on the radiator and dilate the blood vessels and the other thing. You have to be very careful in the summer when you’re on blood pssure medic check your blood pressure because the high temperatures cause your vessels to

5:25 dilate and your blood pressure is down. I was recently talking to one of the internests and we were discussing how in the summer they sometimes reducing the blood pressure medicine of their patients because when they were living in a hot climate in the summer, sometimes you need less blood pressure medicine than you normally.

5:41 Speaker 1 Would understood anything you else want to tell people. I was reading an article the other day where it says papaya is very good for you because it has certain ingredients that reduce your cholesterol.

5:58 Speaker 2 Have you heard that, Yeah, well there are, but those are some of the smaller studies. What papaya has used mostly for in papaya enzymes is that it’s found to be in a digestion enhanswer and it helps people sometimes with upset stomach, and it’s a more natural alternative to things that like acid reducers and other over the counter

6:19 and prescription H two blockers. Sometimes people start off taking a papaya enzyme to help them with better digestion, but of course, ask your doctor and consult with them before you try anything. But it is in the literature and it is being used for digestive issues. But as far as lowing the cholesterol, there aren’t any really large studies.

6:39 You know, some of these studies where they say they just looked at ten or twenty people and they said they got better. But we like to see trials where at least always ask and what is the number of people in a study has to have at least a thousand people to have any significance that we can actually

6:53 get some actimal data and turn it into advice that we can give patients.

7:00 Speaker 1 Peter me, Hello, stay cool. Thank you so much for updating all Americans, and we’ll catch up with you again real soon.

7:08 Speaker 2 Thank you. Stay cool, stay hydrated, and keep listening to WABC where we get the truth out every week. Thank you.