Dallas City Wire

Dallas County Health and Human Services (DCHHS) offers their best tips and tricks on how to beat the heat as climate change is creating record-breaking temperatures this summer across the globe. 

Tolerance of heat varies from person to person which means that people need to know what their limits are, MIT Technology Review reported.

"Extreme heat can be very dangerous," DCHHS Director Dr. Philip Huang said. "There (are) some persons that are more susceptible to, you know, heat-related illness like infants and children up to four years of age. Persons 65 years of age or older, people who are on some medications or are ill or overweight are at higher risk of heat-related illness."

Severe heat kills more than 700 people in the United States every year, according to the CDC.

"I think one of the things that we're seeing is certainly some of the things occurring with some of the climate change that's been seen with (an) increase in temperatures, so some of those increases in temperatures put us at a higher risk for this," Huang said. 

Dr. Huang said that the body can reach a temperature of 106 degrees or higher in heat that could result in heatstroke or even cause death or permanent disability if there is a lack of emergency treatment.

"Now, something like heat exhaustion is sort of a milder form of heat-related illness," Dr. Huang said. "This is maybe after more several days of high exposed temperatures or not (an) adequate replacement of fluids and then you have like lower things like heat cramps which are then more like muscle pain, just spasms when you've got people doing strenuous activity out in the heat, things like that."

Muscle pains or spasms can be a symptom because when the body is sweating it depletes itself of fluids and salts.

"What you should do then is sort of, take a rest, stop all activities, sit in a cool place, drink some clear juice or sports beverages and take it easy for a few hours until all the cramps subside," Dr. Huang said. "If you get into that next level with, like, heat exhaustion, drinking cool beverages and resting, you can take a cool shower or bath or sunbath, try to get into air conditioning and wear lighter clothing. But then when you start getting into the heatstroke, that's when your body is overwhelmed it's no longer able to sweat and so you really need to call for medical assistance and try to cool the victim. Get them out of the sun, immerse them in a tub of cold water, put them in a cool shower, spray them down, monitor the body temperature and keep cooling until their body temperature drops to more normal levels."