Experts say the risks are often elevated for women, who may drink less water because they have little or limited access to toilets during work hours. And after work, many women return home to cook, clean, and care for children and family members, often in hot and poorly ventilated spaces.<\/p>\n
\u201cAs extreme heat events become more frequent and severe, we expect the prevalence of dehydration, heat-related illness, and kidney injury to rise,\u201d said Behdin Nowrouzi-Kia, an occupational therapist and assistant professor at the University of Toronto in Canada.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Among sugarcane workers in Guatemala, heat exposure and dehydration during workdays were closely linked<\/a> to kidney injury, according to a 2025 study published in the Journal of Climate Change and Health. Nearly half the workers showed signs of reduced kidney function.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cIn heat stress, particularly during heavy physical labor, blood is redirected toward the skin to dissipate heat, which reduces blood flow to internal organs such as the kidneys,\u201d explained Jaime\u00a0Butler-Dawson, an epidemiologist and an adjunct assistant professor at the Colorado School of Public Health, who led that study. Dehydration, she noted, amplifies this effect by lowering the amount of blood circulating in the body. This means the kidneys may not get enough oxygen, and the structures that filter waste become stressed, raising the risk of acute kidney injury.<\/p>\n Her team saw signs of kidney strain even across a single work shift. Workers who became dehydrated during intense labor showed reduced kidney function, and some developed acute kidney injury.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cThese effects occur even when dehydration is relatively mild, indicating that heat strain is a critical driver of kidney injury,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n The damage appeared to build through many small, repeated stresses each hot workday. With incomplete overnight recovery, this gradual strain can contribute to long-term kidney dysfunction.\u00a0<\/p>\n The World Health Organization and World Meteorological Organization report recommended that governments, employers, and local and regional health authorities develop occupational heat-health policies. Plans and advisories should be tailored to local weather conditions and focus on vulnerable populations such as middle-aged and older workers, individuals with chronic health conditions and other fitness or health problems, the report said. The report also called for technical innovations and support for further research on better protecting workers worldwide.\u00a0<\/p>\n How dehydration strains the body<\/strong><\/p>\n When fluid loss is not fully replaced, the body conserves water, producing smaller amounts of urine more concentrated with substances such as calcium and oxalate. This makes it more likely that <\/a>crystals can form and grow into kidney stones.<\/p>\n A month after Dange\u2019s kidney stone diagnosis, the pain returned, this time more severe. The doctor asked her to avoid working in extreme heat.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cI am taking medicines again,\u201d she said, adding that she does not know how long she can keep working.<\/p>\n Researchers who studied<\/a> more than 1,400 Indian outdoor workers found they were 2.5 times more likely to experience high heat stress under humid conditions. A review of 17 studies led by Nowrouzi-Kia, conducted largely in North and Central America and Asia, found<\/a> that heat exposure impairs construction workers\u2019 physical health, particularly through dehydration and heat-related illness.<\/p>\n Beyond the kidneys<\/strong><\/p>\n Dehydration can also strain<\/a> the cardiovascular system. As the body loses fluids, the blood becomes more concentrated, and clots are more likely to form. Electrolytes can fall out of balance, disrupting the electrical signals that regulate the heartbeat, risking arrhythmia. The heart also must work harder to keep blood circulating. Dehydration raises the risk of heart attack or stroke for people with underlying cardiovascular conditions, experts say.<\/p>\n As fluids are lost through sweat, the body also loses sodium and potassium, disrupting nerve signals and muscle function. It can disrupt how muscles contract, leading to cramps, weakness, and reduced physical capacity<\/a>.<\/p>\n Indian farmworker Chingu Yadav, 53, grew restless one evening, and the next morning she was admitted to a hospital. Doctors told her persistent dehydration had affected her kidneys and heart. She quit farm work after a similar episode the following year, but the damage was done. Yadav says she now feels constantly weak and struggles with routine tasks. She worries about losing her balance when she walks. Her doctor told her such symptoms can also be linked to the body\u2019s loss of essential electrolytes during prolonged dehydration.\u00a0<\/p>\n She has since started carrying water whenever she steps out and tries to rest as much as possible. For more than three decades, she had worked up to 10 hours a day in the fields.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cI never paid attention to how dehydration was affecting my health all these years,\u201d she said. \u201cEarlier, I could work the entire day and not feel this tired,\u201d she added. \u201cNow, even an hour in the heat feels scary.\u201d<\/p>\n Butler-Dawson said women\u2019s experience of heat is shaped by both biology and working conditions. Even when doing similar or less physically intense work, women may experience heat strain differently.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cPhysiologically, women may differ from men in sweating rates, body composition, total body water, and hormonal regulation, all of which influence thermoregulation and heat dissipation,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n When hydration isn\u2019t enough<\/strong><\/p>\n Researchers tracking Latino farmworkers in North Carolina found<\/a> dehydration worsening dramatically over the course of the workday. Before work, nearly half the workers showed signs of dehydration. By the end of the day, all of them did. Limited access to clean drinking water, few breaks, and harsh working conditions made it difficult for workers to stay hydrated.<\/p>\n \u201cImproved access to drinking water and scheduled rest breaks are foundational,\u201d Nowrouzi-Kia said.\u00a0<\/p>\n Regular fluid intake, he said, helps workers stay productive even in extreme heat. Protecting workers from extreme heat includes training workers to recognize early signs of heat-related illness and putting heat alert programs in place.<\/p>\n Butler-Dawson said that the most effective strategies combine regular rest breaks with access to shade or other cooling strategies to help the body recover, along with replacing fluids and salts lost through sweat.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cProtecting health with increasing and more frequent extreme temperatures requires redesigning work policies and practices to match new environmental realities, rather than asking bodies to endure unsafe conditions,\u201d she added.\u00a0<\/p>\n Back in Kolhapur, Dange continues to work in the fields even during the heat waves. She now takes breaks when she can and tries to stay hydrated.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cPeople think they are used to working in the heat,\u201d she said. \u201cBut heat spares no one.\u201d<\/p>\n This article<\/a> first appeared on Yale Climate Connections<\/a> and is republished here under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License<\/a>.![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/david-geneugelijk-d4j5hns6sj8-unsplash.jpg\")
Photo by David Geneugelijk<\/a> on Unsplash<\/a><\/p>\n![](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/ycc-favicon.png\"\/)
<\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"by Sanket Jain, Yale Climate Connections Sharp abdominal pain stabbed at Suvarna Dange after she spent a long…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":569560,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[78],"tags":[20269,7581,18,59294,135,475,19,17],"class_list":["post-569559","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-health","tag-climate-crisis","tag-dehydration","tag-eire","tag-extreme-heat","tag-health","tag-health-care","tag-ie","tag-ireland"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ie\/116865655984477154","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/569559","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=569559"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/569559\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/569560"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=569559"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=569559"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=569559"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}