Posted on 07/12/2012 8:40:00 PM PDT by goldstategop
"We looked for high quality research that had compared groups of people using fans with groups who didn't use them during a heatwave [sic]. However, we didn't find any research that met our requirements," the researchers wrote. "Some suggested that fans might reduce health problems, while others suggested that the fans might make things worse."
The team of researchers concluded that a fan that is not directly aimed at a person in temperatures lower than 95 degrees Fahrenheit may help one cool down. However, they said that a fan propped against a window pumping in outside air above 95 degrees could be dangerous, and might actually cause a person's body temperature to increase, putting them at risk.
"This is particularly important for people who are considered more vulnerable to the effects of heat, such as older adults who are less able to cool down through sweating or increasing the flow of blood to their skin," Gupta said in a press release.
While cool air on sweat may feel refreshing, excess sweating can still lead to dehydration and other dangers such as heat exhaustion and heat stroke.
"I would advise caution in using fans for elderly patients during a heat wave with a history of coronary artery disease or hypertension who are on multiple medications which have the ability to impair effective sweating or cooling," added Dr. Robert Glatter, an emergency medicine physician at Lenox Hill Hospital in New York City, in an email to HealthPop. Glatter was not involved in the new research.
(Excerpt) Read more at cbsnews.com ...
Another junk study science to keep y'all entertained during the dog days of summer.
Not giving up my Vornado fan and Lasko high velocity fan yet!
I suppose these are recommended?
HUH?
They can have my fan when they pry it from my cold, dead tabletop !!
Laskos work great
Just warming you up for the ObamaCare death panels. The panel may decide that based upon your age and your value to society that air conditioning or fan costs exceed the expected economic returns from your continued existence....thusly, you can die from heat exhaustion for all they care.
So why didn't the researchers do the research to suit themselves? Maybe because they had not an ounce of credibility to begin with? Most likely because it would have blown their whole effort to secure government funding to study the study of the study.
You're supposed to hang wet bedsheets in front of the fan.
You're doing it wrong LOL
Come get me copper.
/johnny
Yes they are, and I am heartily sick of them.
Junk science.
Now I concede the electric fan has no real effect in high humidity heat when you should really use use air conditioning.
But in the dry climate I live in an electric fan works nearly as well as swamp cooler.
The heat wave must have addled scientists’ brains. We need to cool down and our bodies don’t always keep us comfortable!
Then turn the fan around and blow it facing outside to suck out the hot air out of the house. When we were kids we didn’t have A/Cs. All we had were fans. My mother had a huge window fan that she ran all night and it did a good job of sucking out the hot air out of our house. It still wasn’t air cond., but we survived.
I remember when I was real little my Grandpa turning a tabletop fan on me and telling me how it felt just like a lake breeze. I guess when you’re raised without any fans, like my Grandpa was, a fan was a big improvement.
Certainly the fans can help purge hot air from the house at night. And you’d be stupid not to have a few bottles of drinking water by your bed in this kind of heat.
They’re stupid.
People set a box fan outwards to exhaust hot air on a hot day and they turn it inwards at night to draw in cool air.
These folks have never seen a fan in their life!
So now the left has to protect people who are too stupid to use fans?
I grew up with out a/c too...
I’m still sucking air :)
I think this is more a setup for a/c stamps.. kind of like food stamps but you pay for your a/c unit and electricity with the stamps.
Next some egghead will tell us how fires can harm us when it’s cold if we lay on top of them.
The physics of evaporation on the skin.
It takes them decades to figure out stuff we learned as kids.
During the hottest part of the day you can try things....
1.Turn the fan around so you are circulating air but not pumping in hot air
or
2. Close the windows, pull the curtains, and sit in front of the fan. It helps to put a cool cloth on your body - or even over the fan.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.