January 17, 2017.
If you are being treated for hyperthyroidism, heart failure or diabetes, be careful, the cold of the next few days could make your treatment dangerous for your health.
Cold and medication: a hazardous mix
Some drugs do not coexist with the cold. A phenomenon that should not be taken lightly by patients who have treatment for certain pathologies, such as heart or respiratory failure, asthma, diabetes or even certain neurological disorders. The drugs most of these patients take have an effect on the thermoregulation of their body, which will further activate the cooling of the body..
In a warning published on the France Television website, Dr Michel Cymes calls on the patients concerned to be vigilant, while the French territory is in the grip of a great cold wave. ” The outside temperature may drop, the internal temperature, that of our body, must remain around 37 ° », Explains the specialist. ” Thanks to a thermostat in the brain, we have reflexes that make it possible to produce heat and save it. “.
Some treatments interfere with the body’s thermoregulation
” But some drugs disrupt these reflexes, they can increase the effects of cold on the body. », Continues the doctor. ” They can also affect our vigilance, we do not realize that it is cold “. Certain drugs are more dangerous than others in the event of cold, this is the case of certain antidepressants, vasodilators or nitrates which can promote hypothermia by reducing the vasoconstrictor effect.
Treatments against hyperthyroidism are also concerned, in that they act on the gland which regulates the temperature of the body.
Sybille Latour.
Read also: How to counter the dangers of cold?
