The Deadly Dangers of Drinking Alcohol in the Heat

By John A. Tures, Professor of Political Science, LaGrange College

Like many of you, I enjoyed drinking at outdoor events in college. The two seemed to go hand in hand…until a dangerous event at a college football game got me to rethink some of those ideas. This column will reinforce these risks people face by consuming alcohol in the heat, and offers some possible solutions.

It was early September, and the heat index in Tallahassee was well over 100 degrees. At the noontime Florida State University football game, there was no shortage of pre-drinking, part of the gridiron tradition. At some point early in the second quarter, a fellow student disappeared. We found her underneath the stadium, packed in ice by paramedics, being readied for an ambulance trip to the local hospital. She wasn’t a heavy drinker, but her unfortunate experience showed it didn’t take much to feel the effects of alcohol and excessively hot weather.

The BBC reports that all across Europe, there are worries that alcohol is amplifying the ambulance calls for heart attacks and possibly deaths during their terrible heat wave. “Parisians, meanwhile, will be restricted from drinking alcohol in public from noon through the night on both Friday and Saturday. Extreme heat puts immense physical strain on the body – made worse if you are dehydrated from drinking alcohol – with the heart pumping harder and faster to cool you off…Alcohol is a diuretic, which means it makes you pee more, while the hot weather also makes us sweat lots. ‘This dehydration double whammy makes it even more important to drink plenty of water and stay as hydrated as possible throughout the day,’ says Alcohol Change UK.”

In an Environmental Health study in 2024 by Nathan B. Morris, Nicholas Ravanelli and Georgia K. Chaseling “epidemiological research still demonstrates a well-established association between alcohol consumption and a greater morbidity and mortality risk during heatwaves.”

“Although drinking patterns vary substantially across countries, an estimated 2.3 billion people worldwide consume alcohol,” writes Emma Fenske for The Conversation. It is deeply integrated into social life across the globe, despite its well-documented health risks.”

Fenske, an Addiction Medicine Fellow and Internal Medicine Physician at Oregon Health & Science University, adds “Yet alcohol contributes to millions of deaths globally each year and is linked to cancer, liver disease, unintentional accidents, violence and, importantly, dependence and addiction. Despite this, the disconnect between alcohol’s cultural role and its serious health burden is striking.”

Earlier this year, Dr. Mehmet Oz referred to alcohol as a ‘social lubricant’ according to People Magazine. He contends that it brings people together and facilitates bonding, “famously joking that adults should ‘just don’t have it for breakfast.’” Experts from the medical field also offer their critiques of his position, according to The New York Times.

In the People Magazine article, Oz claimed that when you look at people who “live the longest, alcohol is sometimes part of their diet.” But Fenske points out that those studies have been debunked by more rigorous tests. “Over the past decade, however, higher-quality studies have challenged those findings, suggesting that much of the apparent benefit may have reflected differences in the health and lifestyles of moderate drinkers rather than a protective effect of alcohol itself.” So moderation, not the alcohol, may be the key.

Is there a solution? The explosion of the non-alcoholic drink market (non-alcoholic beers and mocktails) maybe a positive trend toward warding off the effects of alcohol and maybe the heat as well.

A US Chamber of Commerce article notes “The health and wellness halo, and its associated mindfulness about consumption, catapulted the category. ‘Consumers are making more purposeful choices, including whether to eliminate or moderate alcohol intake,’ said Adrienne Stillman Krausz, Co-owner of the Dry Goods Beverage Company, an online retailer of nonalcoholic beverages.” Further evidence in the essay shows double-digit, even triple-digit growth in this market.

As someone who remembers some of the awful offerings in the early 1990s, I’ve sampled many of the non-alcoholic beers, from Michelob (Ultra Zero) and Heineken (0.0) to the Athletic Brewing Company options for IPAs and Golden Ales, and find them to be pretty good alternatives to the real thing.

Obviously, staying hydrated and avoiding the worst of the heat as much as possible seems like the best solution, but there are non-alcoholic options by companies that seem like more than just good economic investments. They could also be smart health options.

John A. Tures is a professor of political science at LaGrange College in LaGrange, Georgia. His views are his own. He can be reached at jtures@lagrange.edu or on “X” at @johntures2. His first book “Branded” a thriller novel where corporate greed, media manipulation and academic intrigue collide in a deadly game of product placement, has been published by the Huntsville Independent Press (https://www.huntsvilleindependent.com/product-page/branded). His second book, Independent Thought, about a third party candidacy that brings America to its knees, comes out later this summer.