"Just Using an Electric Fan?… It's Dangerous," Experts Warn

[Anchor]

No matter how hot it gets, many elderly people try to endure the heat at home using only an electric fan due to concerns over electricity bills.

They believe the breeze from a fan is cool enough, but does our body feel the same way? Jeong Banseok reports.

[Reporter]

Electric fans are more familiar to elderly people than air conditioners.

[Ha (surname)/Yeongdeungpo-gu, Seoul : If you leave the air conditioner on and fall asleep, it's harmful anyway.]

[An (surname)/Yeongdeungpo-gu, Seoul : Since I live alone, I just turn on the fan and live with it.]

When 104 rural elderly people in South Korea were surveyed during the 2018 heatwave, the first thing they turned to for the heat was not an air conditioner, but an electric fan.

Electricity costs were the biggest reason.

How effective is an electric fan in lowering body temperature?

Although mornings and evenings have become cooler, daytime highs in many places still climbed up to 33°C to 34°C (91°F to 93°F) today (August 12).

Indoor temperatures are usually a bit higher than this and can rise up to 36°C (97°F).

A Canadian research team measured the core body temperature—the temperature inside the body, not the skin—of 18 elderly people aged 65 and older at 36°C (97°F) for 8 hours.

Their core body temperature rose up to 38.3°C (101°F), and turning on an electric fan made little difference.

This is because when the temperature is high, an electric fan simply blows the already heated surrounding air onto the body.

When the core body temperature reaches around 39°C (102°F), it can cause life-threatening heatstroke symptoms along with organ damage.

The research team analyzed that once the indoor temperature exceeds 33°C (91°F), electric fans fail to properly lower body temperature.

Of course, feeling the breeze from a fan makes people feel cool as sweat on the skin evaporates.

The Canadian research team warns that this creates a "false sense of security."

It means that even though the inside of the body is not cooling down, people feel as though only their skin is cool, which can lead them to neglect necessary cooling measures.

Elderly people, who perspire less, drop their internal body temperature much less and need to be especially careful.

[Kim Hojoong / Professor of Emergency Medicine at Soonchunhyang University Bucheon Hospital : You can think of today's heat as what you might call a wind blowing in the desert. No matter how much the wind blows in the desert, it is not a wind that cools down heat, but rather a situation that aggravates the heat or dries the body out even more. Therefore, a season has arrived where we can no longer endure simply with an electric fan...]

The World Health Organization advises that setting the air conditioner to 27°C (81°F) and running an electric fan together can reduce electricity bills by up to 70% while making it feel about 4°C cooler.

(Photo: Cho Chang-hyun | Video by Jeong Yong-hwa | Graphics by Haneul & Yeji)
※ Please note: This article was translated by AI and may contain errors.