"Couch Potato Drug" May Protect Against Heat Stroke

Usually one gets heat stroke from overactivity on a hot, sunny day.

An experimental drug that once made the headlines as the "couch potato pill", for its capacity to mimic the effects of exercise in sedentary mice, may have another use, as a way to protect against heat stroke. In a new study about to be published in the journal Nature Medicine, scientists describe how the experimental therapy, called AICAR, protected animals with a genetic predisposition to heat stroke. They hope it means the drug holds promise for treating people who are susceptible to heat-induced sudden death.

We have seen headlines about people unexpectedly dying from heat stroke. A physically fit young athlete, seemingly no different from his colleagues, suddenly dies on the football field during a sweltering hot day in August, or the victim could be an elderly woman gardening in the middle of a hot July day.

Heat stroke is a serious, life-threatening condition, and currently we have no treatment for it other than immerse the casualty in ice water or apply ice packs to bring their body temperature down to normal.

Cases of heat stroke are on the rise. According to a recent study in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine, the number of injuries linked to heat stroke in the US more than doubled in the ten years from 1997 to 2006, during which time, an estimated 55,000 people received treatment for the condition in emergency rooms across the US.

Seems as if being a couch potato can be protection enough against heat stroke, without drugs.