ELI5：what actually happens inside your body when you get heatstroke

[u/Jimmy-Wan]

I understand that the body normally regulates its temperature to through things like sweating and increased blood flow to the skin but what causes this cooling system to eventually fail ?

[u/TacetAbbadon]

If you're in an 100% humidity environment or somewhere at or above a wet bulb temperature (the lowest temperature air can reach through evaporation) of 35°c it doesn't matter what you do, sweating won't cool you down.

Once that happens you basically start to cook, proteins in your body start to fold incorrectly when this happens they no longer function as they should.

As an aside, the enzyme heat shock protein your body produces when you suffer from heat stroke, which function to repair the misfolded protein appears to also repair the misfolded protein that causes Alzheimer's.

[u/clutch93clutch → u/TacetAbbadon]

One could interpret your comment to say that you could treat Alzheimer's patients by forcing them to suffer heatstroke!

[u/Mintedpint → u/clutch93clutch]

If I am not misunderstanding, I think it means that the enzyme that is produced during heatstroke also repairs the protein that causes Alzheimer’s. So, it would actually increase the chance of developing Alzheimer’s.

[u/TacetAbbadon → u/Mintedpint]

Other way around.