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June 28, 2010
The Claim: Diabetes Makes You Sensitive to Heat
By ANAHAD O’CONNOR
THE FACTS

Summer can be uncomfortable for anyone. But for people with diabetes, the heat and humidity can be particularly hazardous.

One of the complications of diabetes, both Type 1 and Type 2, is an impaired ability to adjust to rises in temperature, which can cause dangerous increases in body temperature during the summer. The underlying problem, nerve damage, occurs in 60 to 70 percent of Americans with diabetes; it can affect nearly every organ in the body, including sweat glands. When nerve damage keeps the sweat glands from working properly, the body fails to cool down as the mercury rises.

In one small study, scientists compared diabetic patients and a group of healthy control subjects as they were exposed to increasing temperatures. The subjects were hooked up to devices that measured skin temperature, core temperature and sweat rates. As temperatures rose, the control subjects’ perspiration rates increased proportionately; their core temperatures stayed constant.

“For subjects with diabetes, sweat seemed to plateau irrespective of an alarming rise in core temperature,” the scientists wrote. “The diabetic subjects’ generalized inability to sweat across the body had a profound effect on core temperature.”

Research by the Mayo Clinic in Arizona shows that diabetic patients have higher rates of adverse events — like hospitalizations, dehydration and death — in the heat. Yet a survey by the clinic found that many were unaware of the greater risk and the need for special precautions.

THE BOTTOM LINE

People with diabetes are particularly vulnerable to hot weather.

ANAHAD O’CONNOR scitimes@nytimes.com



Updated 6/30/2010 BHP