Some of the most prescribed medications, including those used to treat depression, ADHD and high blood pressure, can increase the risk of dehydration and other heat-related conditions.
This year, at the height of Europe’s June heatwave, Ileana Okumus couldn’t understand why she was struggling so much more than other people.
“As soon as I left my apartment, my face started to sweat,” she says. Living in a top-floor Brussels apartment without air conditioning, the 28-year-old sought relief wherever she could find it – the office, local cafes. But it wasn’t enough.
“I had to wait half an hour, an hour, before I cooled down,” she says. “There was one particular day when the temperature inside the apartment reached 34C [93F]. I think I slept around 18 hours.” She found it difficult to wake up, and worried that her blood pressure might have dropped.
The intensity of the heatwave was nothing new for Okumus, who has lived through 40C [104F] summers elsewhere in the world. Yet it was the first time the heat had hit her this hard. Only after seeing social media posts from people with similar symptoms did she make the connection between the heat and the medicines she’d started taking two years ago for depression and anxiety.