Minding Yourself In The Heat with Dr Colm Henry
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Who is Dr Colm Henry and why is he advising on heat safety?
Dr Colm Henry, Chief Clinic and Officer of the HSE. Good morning to you in the Cork studio. Good morning, Brendan. It's a hot one in Cork today, is it, Colm?
Yes, it's about 24 degrees now. We'll peak, I'd say, at 28 degrees later and West Cork is predicted to hit 30 degrees or maybe slightly over.
Okay, so you're going to give us a bit of advice on minding ourselves in the heat. So what are the main issues that can arise for people in this kind of heat?
Well, heat, protracted exposure to heat presents dangers to all people and particularly to some groups at this level of heat, hence the yellow warning from MetErin. Our bodies, Brendan, are finely tuned to maintain a very fine balance of temperature, fluid balance, salt balance, and that's what makes our cells work correctly. so well in that finely balanced spectrum of temperature and fluid. And that's what makes our bodies work. And once it deviates outside this area, particularly through excessive heating or abnormalities of our salt content and fluid, things begin to go wrong. And there are certain sections of the population, very vulnerable, particularly young babies who can't act or older people who can't either, their reflexes aren't so attuned to
or they can't act out on, say, thirst and all those things that are designed to protect our bodies. Those who have confusion, those with dementia, those with limited mobility, those with chronic disease and, of course, those who are living alone. So we have advice on the HSE website for all people, but also that advice is particularly pertinent to those at-risk groups.
OK, before we get into the general advice, can I ask you, I think a thing that has become a bigger issue for a lot of people in the last few nights is the night time thing. And these tropical nights, as they're called, it's not it's even when it's warm here, we don't normally get the nights this hot. And I think it is discombobulating a lot of people and affecting sleep and other things as well. Any advice around the night times?
Yes. So you're absolutely right that the temperatures, as met error, around about 15, 16 degrees at night, which is something nobody, it's very uncommon in this country. So the advice is to keep the house as cool as possible during the day by blinds down, curtains closed, windows shut, and then to ventilate the house maximally at night to let in all the cool nighttime air possible. So to bring the temperature in the bedroom down.
Which groups are most vulnerable to heat-related illness?
Of course, we're advising people to drink plenty of cold fluids, plenty of cold water, cold drinks, and that includes at night time. And also, Brendan, to avoid excess alcohol, because we know that that exacerbates dehydration, can make people worse. And just keep as cool, light clothes, sheets only at night and keep all the house windows, doors as much as you can open to let in the cool night air.
And even keep them open at night. OK, so on the hydration thing, I suppose first, should we just be drinking as much water as we can stand at the moment? Should some people be using electrolyte tablets with it? Are they helpful?
Well, we mentioned earlier how our bodies are very finely tuned to keep particularly our salt levels and our fluid levels within a very narrow spectrum. And we keep that way because it's driven very much by some very strong reflexes that exist in our body, none more stronger than thirst, which is really driven by when salt content begins to go up in the body. But in this kind of weather, people need to drink regardless of whether or not they feel thirsty. And that includes particularly people who are vulnerable. I mentioned those groups earlier, older people and those who can't access drinks themselves. Those maybe have confused dementia or mobility problems, young babies. So we need to maintain high levels of cold fluids and change the usual rule set for children.
Get fluids in, cold fluids, lollipops, whatever means are necessary to get them drinking cold fluids. We're talking for adults, two to two and a half litres a day.
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