HEALTH INFO

You might have heard the word over heat and heat stroke before, but do you know what the effects are and how it always starts? You can guess easily that those two things are events caused by heat or something hot.

A lot of times during long trip, a lot of vehicles stop by the sidewalk with an open front side and you can see smoke coming from the machine, the driver and all the passengers look stressed out and scared. The driver must know that the car is overheating making the radiator leaking and is not able to cool down the machine used during the long trip.

That illustrations describes simply effects of overheating in a car, but unconsciously overheat is actually more dangerous if it happens to human. In human, a break down car with smoke coming from inside is known as heat stroke, a condition where the human body is overheated until it reaches the stage of heavy dehydration and the human will pass out eventually.

People with high risk oh heat stroke are babies, elderlies (along with heart disease, lung disease, kidney problem or medicine that give side effects of exposure to dehydration and heat stroke), athletes, and people who work outside and physically in contact with sunlight for a long period of time every day.

The cause of heat stroke also varies, one of them is because increasing of surrounding temperature, using layers of clothing that will interrupt natural’s process of sweating, and activities that can increase body’s temperature, like being in contact directly with sunlight and over exercise.

According to University of Maryland Medical Center’s site, the main cause of heat stroke is because you are in direct contact with sunlight, especially for people who work under sunlight for hours each day, they are running out of body’s fluid until it can’t be supplied anymore to cool down the body’s temperature.

Just like a car, before you get overheated you will get a warning through your car’s thermometer. You don’t really have to pay attention to those warnings sometimes, not yet until your car produces smoke and it is too late to do anything. That also applies to heat stroke in your body, symptoms like thirst, dry throat and headache also appear in beginning and you don’t really pay attention to them because you think it’s just a regular thing that happens every day, and you will realize it later when you pass out and it’s too late to do anything.

A car with a good condition and always has its radiator filled with good water will not have an overheat. If you fill it with any kind of water, the radiator will get rusty until it cannot function properly anymore, therefore it cannot cool down the machine. Same thing happens with human body, keeping it away from heatstroke is not just about fulfilling our body with any fluids but also keeping your eating and drinking habit in track which will make sure that your body will not be weakened and keeping you away from the threatening condition of heat stroke.

You have to make sure you take a good care of your body and keeping it away from heat stroke even though you are exposed to sun light in a quite some period of time, you should make sure you follow this steps :

1. Make drinking as much as you can as a habit, at least 8 glasses per dat. Make sure you always bring functional drink, like Coolant which can lower your body’s temperature so that you will not get dehydration faster when you do heavy activities and when you’re exposed to sunlight.
2. Use hat, glasses and sun block to resist direct contact with your body.
3. If you do heavy activity, always do a warming up before and work out regularly so your body will be ready to do a lot of activities and cooling down.
4. During your direct contact with sunlight or during your activity, and you feel thirsty, headache and dry throat, make sure you drink a glass of water afterwards, it is better if you bring along the water which can optimize fluid absorption in your body and decrease your body’s temperature.

Remember, being precaution to early symptoms of heat stroke will cost you less money than curing it. Just like a car, giving good water to its radiator will cost you less money compared to if your car is already overheated and break down on the street. But the more important thing is before you put your car in priority number one, make sure your body is free from heat first. (Indonesia)

 

References:

1. http://www.umm.edu/
2. How to Prevent Heat Stroke from Occurring (http://www.infobarrel.com/How_to_Prevent_Heat_Stroke_from_Occurring)
3. Bila Radiator Tubuh ngadat "Dehidrasi Tingkat Tinggi" (http://andhirao2.blogspot.com/2010/11/bila-radiarot-tubuh-ngadat.html)