What Is Heat Intolerance?
Heat intolerance is a condition where your body temperature rises above normal levels due to environmental factors such as high temperatures or humidity. You may experience symptoms like headaches, fatigue, nausea, dizziness and shivers when it gets too hot. These are just some of the common symptoms associated with heat intolerance.
The condition is often referred to as heat stroke. A person suffering from heat intolerance may have trouble breathing, lose consciousness and even die if they don’t get medical attention immediately.
It’s not uncommon for people to experience symptoms of heat intolerance at different times throughout the day. For example, someone experiencing symptoms during the afternoon may not realize their illness has worsened until it starts getting dark and they start feeling sick again.
People with heat intolerance are usually diagnosed after noticing symptoms first hand. They may also suffer from other health conditions which make them more susceptible to heat stress. Some examples include:
Diabetes
High blood pressure (hypertension)
Heart disease or heart failure (myocardial infarction)
These conditions increase the risk of developing heat intolerance. If you have a medical condition that makes you more susceptible to heat, it’s important that you keep up with medical check-ups. It’s also vital that you take steps to lower your risk of developing heat intolerance by following a healthy lifestyle.
What causes heat intolerance?
One of the main causes of heat intolerance is the inability to properly regulate body temperature. This means that your body doesn’t do a good job at releasing the right amount of sweat when exposed to high temperatures.
Sweating is the body’s natural way of lowering body temperature. When you sweat, the water on your skin evaporates into the air and brings your body temperature down a bit.
When a person has heat intolerance, they don’t sweat enough and as a result they overheat and their body temperature rises to dangerous levels. This can be caused by many different factors, such as some medical conditions and side effects from taking certain medications.
Some of the most common causes of heat intolerance are:
Dehydration – As mentioned above, dehydration is a common cause of heat intolerance. The more dehydrated your body is, the less likely it is to sweat, and therefore lower its internal temperature.
Some medical conditions – Certain medical conditions such as kidney disease or adrenal gland issues can also prevent your body from sweating. Certain types of cancer can also raise your risk of heat intolerance.
Sources & references used in this article:
Heat intolerance: predisposing factor or residual injury? by Y Epstein – Medicine and science in sports and exercise, 1990 – safetylit.org
Heat intolerance in former heatstroke patients by Y SHAPIRO, A MAGAZANIK, R UDASSIN… – Annals of internal …, 1979 – acpjournals.org
Voluntary dehydration and heat intolerance in cystic fibrosis by O Bar-Or, JA Hay, DS Ward, CJR Blimkie… – The Lancet, 1992 – Elsevier
Physiological correlates of heat intolerance by WL Kenney – Sports medicine, 1985 – Springer
