“Assuming you can’t spend a heat wave bobbing up and down in some cool body of water, the next best option is to hunker down inside with air blowing on you, right? Preferably it’s from an air conditioner set on arctic chill. But if there’s no AC, then an electric fan would be the next best thing, wouldn’t you think? Well, it turns out health experts aren’t so sure about electric fans. And they say using one in a really brutal heat wave can sometimes do more harm than good. In an editorial accompanying a review of studies from around the world on the effectiveness of electric fans, researchers writing this week in the The Cochrane Library say there’s no evidence that fans are the way to go during a heat wave. In fact, they say, that when temperatures rise above 95 degrees, or roughly body temperature, the fan might actually make you even hotter, unable to sweat and sick. There’s some disagreement as to how, but some researchers have found hot air blowing on a hot body can cause an increase in the rate of dehydration or heat exhaustion.” w/ photos
