The death Wednesday of N.C. A&T football player Chad Wiley is drawing attention to how the heat affects athletes.
Wiley, 22, died about 18 hours after a supervised, optional offseason conditioning session ended on the school's campus. University officials said they will know more about the cause of death once an autopsy is conducted.
More than 200 deaths directly attributable to hot weather conditions occurred each year from 1979 to 2002 in this country, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Hot weather might have been a contributing factor in hundreds more deaths each year.
Among football players at all levels, there will be about one case of heatstroke, the most serious heat-related illness, for every 350,000 players, said Dr. Daryl Rosenbaum, a football team physician at Wake Forest. Fatality rates among heatstroke patients range from 10 to 20 percent, the CDC said.
Tuesday's high of 86 made it the warmest day of the year up to that point. It was 83 on Monday, but before that the temperature hadn't reached 83 since April 26, and most highs since then had been in the 70s. Rosenbaum couldn't say whether the quick jump in temperature might have caused a shock to Wiley's system.
He did say, however, that the body needs days to adjust itself to exertion when it's hot.
"In the first few days, the body will increase blood flow to the skin to give off heat,"
Rosenbaum said. "On day two and day three, you sweat more. It takes about a week or 10 days before the body is able to handle (the heat) as well as it can. That's why we recommend when it's hot to start slow and gradually build intensity and duration of exercise."
But that gradual building must take place in the heat, he said. Trying to prepare for exertion in the heat by practicing in air conditioning won't help.
Rosenbaum also said people with sickle-cell trait -- people who have inherited the genetic anomaly that causes sickle-cell disease from one parent, but not both -- might be more vulnerable to heat illness. He said Wake Forest is considering screening players for the trait.
Was heat illness less common years ago, before air conditioning became widespread? Rosenbaum isn't so sure.
"We probably do a better job of diagnosing it now, so we probably recognize it more now than back then,"
he said. "And with more media coverage and dispersal of information more efficiently, we're more aware of it than we were back then."
"...with the rules changes and increased awareness, I would think we have less, but I can't quote any numbers."
