Heat stroke scare in Kolkata

KOLKATA: An unidentified 35-year-old man collapsed while walking along the Howrah Maidan and died before he could be shifted to a hospital on Thursday afternoon. Doctors at the Howrah District Hospital suspected that he suffered a heat-stroke. A postmortem will be conducted on Friday to determine the cause of death. Earlier this month, a 55-year-old gardener had succumbed to heat stroke in Kolkata. Doctors warned that the prevailing weather conditions were ideal for triggering heat strokes which could be fatal in nearly half the cases.

A heat- stroke is usually prompted by a prolonged exposure to sun. Unless the body is able to lose the heat generated, the hypothalamus or the temperature controlling centre of the brain goes haywire. It eventually collapses and stops functioning. “The body loses heat through three methods – convection, radiation and conduction. Several factors could turn them ineffective. First, the elderly are vulnerable since they have a shrunken blood volume which affects the heat losing mechanism. Secondly, those on anti-hypertensive drugs are at risk, too. So are those with a cardiac condition or renal diseases. Finally, a sudden drop in blood-sugar level could also lead to a heat-stroke during a long exposure to the sun,” said consultant, AMRI Hospital, Debashish Saha.

The Howrah man is likely to belong to the last group, felt Saha. A light meal every four hours is a must for those who need to spend long hours in the sun, he said. “It helps to keep the blood sugar level right. Often, we tend to ignore this basic advice and venture out in the summer heat. This could trigger a sudden heat-stroke, which seems to have happened to this young man,” said Saha.

Children, too, were a high risk group, according to Samarjit Naskar, consultant at Belle Vue Clinic. They had lower immunity and were more susceptible to heat and cold stress. Even though heat tolerance is directly related to the body size and weight, children had a larger relative surface area which exposed them to a greater risk than adults. Children also take longer to get acclimatised to heat. For an adult, it could take a week, but a child may need 10-14 days to get used to a sudden surge in temperature.

“I have just treated a child from Purulia who suffered a severe heat-stroke last week. He is doing fine now,” said Naskar. Long gaps between meals could be disastrous in heat, warned Debashish Basu, preventive medicine specialist. “The muscles help the body’s heat losing process. Now, once they are deprived of protein, they slow down, affecting the process. It could eventually lead to a heat-stroke,” he said.

A perfectly healthy youngster, however, was not likely to suffer a heat-stroke unless he fell into the risk categories. “With proper food and water intake heat-strokes can be kept at bay. But long exposure to sun should be avoided as far as possible,” said Naskar.

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