Heat Illness during Working and Preventive Considerations from Body Fluid Homeostasis

Abstract

The purposes of this review are to show pathophysiological mechanisms for heat illness during working in a hot environment and accordingly provide some preventive considerations from a viewpoint of body fluid homeostasis. The incidence of the heat illness is closely associated with body temperature regulation, which is much affected by body fluid state in humans. Heat generated by contracting muscles during working increases body temperature, which, in a feedback manner, drives heat-dissipation mechanisms of skin blood flow and sweating to prevent a rise in body temperature. However, the impairment of heat-dissipation mechanisms caused by hard work in hot, humid, and dehydrated conditions accelerates the increase in body temperature, and, if not properly treated, leads to heat illness. First, we overviewed thermoregulation during working (exercising) in a hot environment, describe the effects of dehydration on skin blood flow and sweating, and then explained how they contributes to the progression toward heat illness. Second, we described the advantageous effects of blood volume expansion after heat acclimatization on temperature regulation during exercise as well as those of restitution from dehydration by supplementation of carbohydrate-electrolyte solution. Finally, we described that the deteriorated thermoregulation in the elderly is closely associated with the impaired body fluid regulation and that blood volume expansion by exercise training with protein supplementation improves thermoregulation.