In 2022 most Americans are experiencing a very hot, maybe even the hottest summer in history, especially in the Southern and Western regions of the country. In addition, the heatwaves have been hitting most parts of the northern hemisphere, including Europe and China. In the hot summer, air conditioning has become nearly an essential part of our life. While we enjoy the comfort of the cool air blowing from AC units, we should be cautious about the potential health problems caused by AC and know how to avoid and treat them. Yes, you heard me right. AC does cause many health problems, and many of them aren't even noticeable.
Let's talk about the various AC-related health problems
If you google the question, you will find a list of AC-related health problems, including fatigue, headache, dry and itching skin, body and muscle pain, arthritis, cardiovascular and respiratory issues, etc. AC also makes people more vulnerable to contracting infectious diseases like colds, flu, and pneumonia.
How does AC cause health problems?
Although AC-related health problems are diverse, the common causes of these problems are always the cold and wind. Simply put, AC provides people in hot summer with an artificially controlled winter-like environment, where low temperature and cold wind are the two major evil Qis (氣) defined in TCM. Unfortunately, people take more precautions to avoid winter's cold than summer. Thus, summer has become a season in which people are harmed by cold without even knowing it.
The cold temperature and wind produced by AC could have the following effects on our bodies:
1. Reduce blood circulation in the skin
The skin is the human body's largest organ that maintains body temperature by altering the amount of blood circulating through the skin. This is achieved by constricting or dilating the skin's blood vessels, which has a vast regulatory effect on the total blood volume.
At a comfortable temperature, such as room temperature, the blood flow to the skin is about 250-500 ml/min, which is only about 5% of the cardiac output. At a high temperature, the blood vessels dilate, and the blood flow can reach an astonishing 6-8 liters/min, which is close to 1.5-2 times the total blood volume. In a cold temperature, the blood vessels are maximally constricted, and the blood flow can be reduced to 20-50 ml/min or even lower.
When the skin's blood vessels are greatly constricted, the body's total blood volume is reduced, and the blood pressure will increase. This is why cardiovascular incidents, like stroke, are more likely to occur in winter or cold temperatures. Well, the body may respond to high blood pressure by lowering the blood volume through increasing urination, which increases the kidneys' workload and can even cause kidney failure over time, especially when the kidneys have pre-existing defects. Moreover, excess urination could cause dehydration of the organs and tissues, which can't be relieved by simply drinking more water. It is because, at this moment, the kidneys are still working hard to reduce the blood volume by urination. The only solution for this situation is to warm up the skin and increase blood flow.
I hope you realize what happens to the people shivering in the AC-controlled offices in mid-July.
2. Penetrate the skin, our first line of defense
Many of us have had such an experience. We sweat a lot in the summer and walk into the AC building. The AC cold air blows on us, and our body quickly stops sweating and even shivers. What happens here is that the pores on the skin are fully open when we sweat, and the cold air can fast go into the pores and penetrate the first line of our immune defense. It could cause a list of health problems, and here name a few. Sweat is a way of body detoxification. When sweat is forced to stop, the wastes and toxins in the sweat are stuck under the skin, which could later cause rashes, acne, and other skin diseases. When the cold air penetrates the skin and stays in muscles and joints, it could cause blood stagnation, muscle pain, joint pain, and even arthritis.
3. Compromise the immunity in the respiratory track and make us vulnerable to infectious diseases
The AC cold air reduces the temperature not only on the skin but also the temperature in the respiratory tract. Current biomedical studies have shown that the temperature in the respiratory tract has a significant impact on immunity. The immune cells are fully functional at 36-37 °C, while at 33-34 °C, their activity is significantly compromised, which allows viruses to replicate. This is why people in winter or cold temperatures are vulnerable to contracting infectious diseases like common colds and flu. Moreover, the skin and lungs are functionally connected in releasing body heat and wastes. When the skin function is inhibited, as discussed in 1 and 2, the lung will have to work harder to expel the heat and waste through breathing, which may compromise the immunity and cause breathing problems over time, such as asthma, tracheitis, and even pneumonia.
4. Consume our heat energy and cause metabolic disorders
We human beings need to maintain the stability of our body temperature. The heat energy for keeping the body temperature is mainly produced by food metabolism. Long-time stay in the AC room will overly consume the heat energy and cause metabolic disorders. People may overeat to produce more heat, and the body may produce more fat tissue to prevent heat loss, resulting in obesity and other metabolic diseases.
5. Acclimatize to the cold air
Now AC is nearly installed in every house, office, building, and car. People have adapted to the AC-controlled world, drastically decreasing their tolerance for hot weather. We have often heard on the news that people got sick or even died of hot weather when the AC is broken. We almost forget humans have been living through hot weather without AC for thousands of years. Unfortunately, technological advances keep us away from nature and lead to a recession in some parts of the human body.
How do you avoid AC-related health problems?
Now we are aware of AC-related health problems. Here I provide a few simple tips to avoid them.
1. Do not set the AC temperature too low!
The DOE has declared the best AC temperature for summer is 78 °F (25.6 °C). However, the comfortable temperature is different from person to person and affected by humidity. It is hard to define a unified temperature for everybody. Here is your guideline: when you wear typical summer clothing and feel cold, you need to increase the AC temperature. A low AC temperature will consume more energy and cause more health problems.
2. Do not stay in the AC environment for too long!
TCM recommends that people submit themselves to nature by following the changes of the four seasons. In summer, people should get to feel the heat and sweat to detoxify and refresh their bodies. So every couple of hours, please walk outside the AC room and expose yourself to the sunshine and fresh air. Feel the heat and get some sweat.
3. Do not allow the AC air to directly blow on your body, especially during sleep at night
The AC air is much colder than the set temperature, so never expose your body to the direct blow of the AC air. Some people get facial paralysis after the AC air blows on their faces during sleep.
4. Put on a cover or coat in the AC room if necessary
When you stay or sleep in an AC room, you may need to put on a cover or coat for protection. When you awake, the shoulders and legs are the places more likely to be affected by the AC air. While in sleep, the belly region needs to be covered because the warm temperature in the belly is essential for food digestion/absorption and blood/Qi circulation.
5. If you sweat outside, let the sweat dry before going into the AC room
As we discussed above, the pores on the skin are open when we sweat, which is vulnerable to cold air invasion. It is best to wait until the sweat stops and dries before going to the AC room.
How to treat AC-related health problems?
In modern medicine, AC-related health problems are presented as diverse symptoms in multiple systems. Thus, modern medicine only treats the symptoms or problems without considering the "Cold and Wind" as the causal factors. On the contrary, in TCM theory, "Cold and Wind" are the two of the Six Evil Qis (六淫 see definition http://www.shen-nong.com/eng/principles/whatsixevils.html) that cause diseases (The other four factors are Heat, Dampness, Dryness, and Fire). The diagnosis and treatment of the diseases caused by Six Evil Qis have been well documented in the great TCM classic Shang Han Lun (Discussion of Cold Damage), summarized in writing 2000 years ago by Zhang Zhongjing, the most famous TCM doctor in history.
In Shang Han Lun, the principles and approaches of diagnosis and treatment for "cold and wind damage" have been extensively discussed, and a list of classical herbal formulas has been created. These herbal formulas and their derivatives are still highly effective in treating the diseases caused by "cold and wind damage." Note that TCM is personalized medicine, meaning herbal formulas must be fine-tuned to fit different symptoms. People who are interested in herbal formulas need to consult TCM professionals. In the future, we will introduce some of the classical procedures in detail.
Fortunately, even without herbal formulas, the foods in the kitchen could be used to relieve cold and wind damage. Food therapy is an integral part of TCM. Many herbal formulas are made of foods, or at least contain foods. The most popular food remedy is ginger soup. To make it, cut several pieces of ginger roots and boil them with brown sugar in water. The soup is spicy hot, and sweet, and thus according to TCM theory, it provides heat energy to warm up the body and make it sweat, which expels the cold and wind out of the skin.
Another simple yet powerful home remedy for cold and wind damage is moxibustion. Moxibustion is an ancient TCM therapy that entails burning mugwort leaves (moxa wool). The fire of moxa wool sticks radiates heat to the body, especially the acupoints or the areas damaged by cold and wind. Studies have shown that the burning moxa wool emits infrared waves and affects both shallow and deep skin tissues. More interestingly, the radiation spectrum of the burning moxa wool is amazingly consistent with the range of acupoints. The ingredients identified from moxa wool and smoke have a variety of biological activities contributing to the comprehensive effects of moxibustion.
Bottom Line
In summary, AC could cause cold, and wind damage our body if it is not used correctly. However, AC-related health problems are preventable and treatable. TCM has the theory and approaches to prevent and treat AC-related health problems effectively. More details related to this topic will be discussed in the future.
References:
Summer 2022 outpacing 2011 as the hottest on record. https://www.kvue.com/article/weather/summer-2022-outpacing-2011-as-hottest-on-record/269-68c2309e-1ab9-4682-b1d6-eeade406d674
Foxman, E. F. et al. Temperature-dependent innate defense against the standard cold virus limits viral replication in mouse airway cells at warm temperatures. Proc Natl Acad Sci USA 112, 827–832 (2015).
Foxman, E. F., Storer, J. A., Vanaja, K., Levchenko, A. & Iwasaki, A. Two interferon-independent double-stranded RNA-induced host defense strategies suppress the common cold virus at warm temperatures. Proc Natl Acad Sci USA 113, 8496–8501 (2016).
Deng, H. and Shen X. The mechanism of moxibustion: ancient theory and modern research. Evid Based Complement Alternat Med 2013: 379291.
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