How Extreme Heat Affects the Body

The New Yorker Radio Hour

WNYC Studios and The New Yorker

News, David, Books, Arts, Storytelling, Wnyc, New, Remnick, News Commentary, Yorker, Politics

4.2 • 5.5K Ratings

🗓️ 26 August 2025

⏱️ 17 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Dhruv Khullar, who reports on medicine for The New Yorker, investigates the medical effects of extreme heat.

Transcript

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0:00.0	This is the New Yorker Radio Hour, a co-production of WNYC Studios and The New Yorker.
0:13.0	This is the New Yorker Radio Hour. I'm Evan Osnos. David Remnick will be back next week.
0:18.6	This summer has broken heat records in many places around the world.
0:23.1	It might not be the hottest summer in recorded history. It might be the second hottest summer.
0:28.4	So, congratulations. Not exactly good news. The experience of intense, sometimes deadly heat is a real
0:35.7	part of our lives now, and it's here to stay.
0:39.0	My colleague, Drew Kular, writes for the New Yorker about medicine and public health.
0:44.0	He's also a practicing physician at a New York hospital, and in 2023, Drew filed this story
0:50.4	about extreme heat and what it's doing to us as we break one temperature record after another.
1:00.3	Nine, ten. Nine. Got it.
1:04.5	All right, we're going to go up in 20 seconds. There are people in the world who set up labs to test
1:09.6	how the human body reacts to all sorts of things.
1:12.9	They can analyze your endocrine system when you produce the lactates that'll slow you down.
1:18.0	Nice work, nice work.
1:19.9	And there are people who agree to get their bodies tested, like me.
1:23.7	Go, Drew, let's go.
1:26.0	Looking strong.
1:27.1	I'm Drew Kulak. I write for the New Yorker, and I'm a doctor.
1:29.3	Oh,
1:30.3	I went to a lab at the University of Connecticut to find out my body's VO2 max.
1:38.3	The maximum amount of oxygen my body can absorb and use during exercise.
1:43.3	Yeah, so we're watching two lines on the graph.
	...

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