ATHENS – A 55-year-old Dutch tourist who was reported missing on the island of Crete was found dead in his care, on a cliff edge near Ierapetra, the toll of tourists missing and dying in Greece during a lingering June heatwave continuing.

No name was given but he was among at least eight tourists reported dead so far, many of them elderly and going on hikes despite temperatures soaring as high as 111 degrees, some without cell phones or protective gear.

They included noted British TV doctor Michael Mosley, 67, who was known for recommending intermittent fasting and was found dead on the island of Symi in a hilly, rocky area after he disappeared on a hike.

For whatever reason, people continue to ignore warnings that it’s not safe to hike in the heat, especially on remote islands where there’s little medical staff, police or rescue and recovery teams that have to be called in when people vanish.

In a review of the ongoing incidents, CNN noted that while autopsies will determine how people died, officials are warning tourists and others not to underestimate the severe impacts of the heat, especially as it’s not letting up and expected to continue all month.

https://www.cnn.com/2024/06/19/climate/extreme-heat-brain-greece-tourists/index.html

“There is a common pattern,” Petros Vassilakis, the police spokesman for the Southern Aegean, told Reuters, “They all went for a hike amid high temperatures,” some without cel phones that tracked them if they collapsed.

Some scientists say what’s happening in Greece offers warnings about the impacts of extreme heat on the body, especially the brain, potentially causing confusion, affecting people’s decision-making abilities and even their perception of risk, the report said.

Research has traditionally focused on the impact of extreme heat on muscles, skin, the lungs and the heart, but “the brain, for me, is the key to it all,” Damian Bailey, a physiology and biochemistry professor at the University of South Wales told CNN.

CAN’T THINK STRAIGHT

It’s the “master switch” for the body, he said, and heat stroke can bring rapid disorientation because the brain contains the hypothalamus, a small diamond-shape structure, which acts as a thermostat and tries to keep the body’s internal temperature at or very close to 37 degrees Celsius (98.6 Fahrenheit). When it’s hot, the hypothalamus activates the sweat glands and widens blood vessels to cool the body down.

But the brain functions well within a narrow range of temperatures and even small changes can affect it. As the heat increases, it can have serious effects, including lowering the fluids in the body and decreasing blood flow to the brain, Bailey said.

Tests he has run on research participants in an environmental chamber, where he cranked temperatures up from 21 to 40 degrees Celsius (around 70 to 104 Fahrenheit), showed a drop in blood flow to the brain by about 9% to 10%.

“That is a big deal in terms of not getting enough fuel into an engine which is running at high end all of the time,” Bailey said.

Kim Meidenbauer, a neuroscientist at Washington State University, told the news site that “You’re not just talking about potentially getting a little bit too warm and maybe having a sunburn,”in extreme temperatures.

“You’re talking about potentially life-threatening (situations), like making poor decisions, having your judgment clouded,” she said. Those over 65 – like many of the tourists who died in Greece – are especially susceptible to the effects of the heat.

“No one is immune to the health effects of heat,” said Jose Guillermo Cedeño Laurent, one of the research authors and an assistant professor at the Rutgers School of Public Health. “Our brain is an exquisitely sensitive organ,” he said.

As happened in Greece, even before the onset of the July-August high heat period as the June cauldron set records for happening so early, that, “You make wrong decisions and it can cost you your life.”