Your hair grows faster in the summer, and peeing on a jellyfish sting helps ease the pain. Where do these summertime wisdoms come from? And more importantly: Are they right? KIJK will find out. In this episode: Hot drinks are better cold than cold drinks.
It’s 35 degrees and the sun is shining. After a beautiful but tiring mountain hike in southern Spain, you step out onto the terrace. It’s time for a glass of water with as many ice cubes as possible. Before you can order, your hiking companion tries to convince you that you need a cup of tea. This will cool you down even more.
Hot drink cools athletes
It may seem strange, cooling down a hot drink, but it can actually work. How? When you drink something warm, temperature receptors in your mouth, esophagus and stomach communicate this to your brain. They respond, among other things, by making your body produce extra sweat. This sweat doesn’t evaporate on its own. That requires heat. It’s produced (in part) by your body. The body’s reaction is so strong that it doesn’t just compensate for the heat of the tea: you actually lose a little extra heat, so you cool down.
daytime study From the University of Ottawa in Canada in 2012, researchers asked nine men to ride a stationary bike for 75 minutes on five different days. The volunteers wore stickers that recorded their skin temperature. During each workout, the participants were given water to drink at different temperatures. With the hotter drink (50 degrees Celsius), the men stored less heat in their bodies during exercise than with the colder drink. So they stayed cooler.
Sometimes cold drinks are better.
However, it is not always a good idea to order a cup of tea during a heat wave. To experience the desired effect, you need to be able to sweat. And this does not always work well. For example, if you are wearing clothes that cover your body, your sweat does not evaporate. Even if the humidity is very high, this does not work well. In all these cases, the excess heat from the cup of tea is harmful and it is better to choose ice water.
Image: iStock/Getty Images
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