Can Hot Weather Cause Diarrhea?

First of all, you must be aware that diarrhea is not a disease but a symptom of infection, often caused by a bacterium, a virus or a parasite. Most of the time, the causes of diarrhea include:

• Food poisoning
• Food intolerance
• Viral digestive infections
• Anxiety and stress
• Menstruation

Do you experience diarrhea when it’s hot? This is known as seasonal acute diarrhea of an infectious or viral origin.

Seasonal diarrhea: causes

Most of the time if you have diarrhea caused by heat, the origin is food. In extremely hot temperatures, many foods become perishable extremely quickly. Once infected, these foods can lead to seasonal diarrhea. At home, especially during summer, we recommend keeping fruits, vegetables and eggs inside of the fridge. In addition, be careful when eating day old meals.

When it's hot, we often crave fresh and raw foods such as raw fruit or vegetable salads, cold soups, etc. But it is precisely for this reason that you should be more careful about what you consume in summer, making sure that the foods you eat are fresh and edible. Make sure to keep your food in the fridge, if outside always keep food in a cooler bag and abide by the sell-by date. For more, we recommend reading our article about the best food to eat when suffering from diarrhea.

When it comes to raw foods and diarrhea, there is often a very strong link. But, why do some raw foods give diarrhea? Some foods are particularly harmful for digestion, so if in addition, they’ve also been infected by hot bacteria, damage is expected! This is because of the presence of germs and bacteria (E.coli, camplyobacter ...) on these fruits and vegetables; germs that are only destroyed by cooking.

Here are some raw fruits and vegetables we recommend you avoid during hot weather, especially if you suffer from gastrointestinal problems:

• Onions
• Cabbage
• All unpeeled fruits

Other than the ingestion of stale foods, heat stroke symptoms or sunstroke are too other factors that commonly cause diarrhea in summer.

Do you suffer from gastrointestinal problems? If so, you may find these following articles helpful:

• What herbal teas are good for diarrhea?
• How to reduce colon inflammation.
• How to cure stomach flu (gastroenteritis) with home remedies.

If food is not the culprit of your diarrhea in heat, in may be heat stroke. Can heat stroke cause diarrhea? 100% yes! If you are suffering from heat stroke, you need to make sure you keep well hydrated! For more, we recommend taking a look at these symptoms of heat stroke (least to most extreme)^[1]:

• Excessive thirst
• Dizziness and light-headedness
• Excessive sweating
• High fever (up to 41 °C)
• Abnormal sleepiness
• Hot, dry skin
• Muscle cramps
• Headaches
• Nausea, vomiting and diarrhea
• Blurred vision
• Fast/heavy breathing
• High or low blood pressure
• Confusion, delusional behavior
• Convulsions
• A possible loss of consciousness followed by a coma.

At the first sign of heat stroke, all physical activity must be stopped, especially in more vulnerable individuals (infants, the elderly, people with obesity or patients). In addition, if your symptoms do not remit soon and/or worsen and you are not able to maintain hydrated, we recommend going to a doctor as soon as possible.For more, we recommend reading what are the symptoms of dehydration?

This article is merely informative, oneHOWTO does not have the authority to prescribe any medical treatments or create a diagnosis. We invite you to visit your doctor if you have any type of condition or pain.

If you want to read similar articles to Can Hot Weather Cause Diarrhea?, we recommend you visit our Diseases & secondary effects category.