BBC expert says if you turn thermostat above 18C 'you may have serious health conditions'

BBC expert says if you turn thermostat above 18C 'you may have serious health conditions' An NHS doctor explained what people may be suffering from if they're persistently cold - and if they need to seek help A BBC expert has explained that wanting to turn up the thermostat might be a sign of some serious health conditions that need to be checked out. Appearing on BBC Morning Live, Dr Ranj Singh explained that some people want to have the temperature turned right up, potentially leading to arguments or disagreements in the home or work. However, he said, while people might just like it warm, there are a number of serious conditions it could indicate. He told hosts Gethin Jones and Helen Skelton that the generally agreed temperature people should aim for in the house is 18C. He said that people who really feel the cold and need the temperature to be higher could, in fact, be suffering from serious health conditions. Dr Ranj explained: “As a general rule, we do say aim for a minimum temperature of around 18C for the rooms you are using regularly. So, that’s things like your bedrooms, your living room, etc. You may actually need to go a bit higher for certain groups. “So, if you’re very elderly, um, if you’ve got poor mobility, babies and young children, if you’ve got certain long-term health conditions. Generally speaking, as a rough guide, aiming for about 18 to 21 degrees for those rooms is usually adequate for most people. But I understand, there are financial implications. You may be tempted to try and keep the heating off for as long as possible to save money, which a lot of people are having to do, but just bear in mind that there can be health risks associated with that.” Risks of being exposed to cold: Dr Ranj explained that the dangers were when people were exposed for ‘prolonged’ periods - not intermittent. He said: “If you’re having to sustain cold temperatures for a very long time, it can affect your body in lots of different ways. I’ll give you some examples. Let’s look at your heart and your blood. “First of all, so in when you’re cold for prolonged periods of time, your blood vessels tend to shrink and they tend to constrict and that means to push blood through them is a bit harder. So, your heart has to work a bit harder to do that. Also, if you’re very cold, your blood becomes thicker. That means you’re more likely to clot. And that’s one of the reasons we see an increase in things like heart attacks and strokes during the colder months.” People often suffer from colds and flu in the winter months, which is not caused by cold, but because the body’s defences are lower. He said: “The cold weather doesn’t necessarily cause colds and flu because they are caused by viruses and infections. But it can affect your immune system because it can lower your immune defences. It can dry out your nose and your upper airways, making them less effective. Your immune system itself, if it’s very cold for a very long time, doesn’t work quite as well. All of those things if you cold it.” People being indoors more also makes infection more likely to happen, he explained: “The viruses that cause these illnesses tend to circulate a bit more at this time of year. People tend to huddle indoors so they’re in close contact a lot. Those can all increase your chances of picking things up.” Serious conditions which make you feel cold. Dr Ranj said that people may have serious underlying health conditions which make them feel cold. He said: “If you’re persistently feeling cold or it’s unexplained, then there may be an underlying medical reason for it. Let me give you some examples. A common one we talk about a lot on the show is diabetes. Now, diabetes can affect your nerves and your circulation, particularly in your peripheries, your hands and your feet. "It can damage the nerves so that you sense cold differently, but it can also damage the blood vessels. So your circulation to your peripheries is affected and that can make you feel colder.” He said that people who have a hypoglycemic attack can feel very cold and clammy as well. On anaemia, he said: “Anaemia is another condition where um if your red blood cells aren’t working well enough, if you haven’t got enough of them, if you’re often not carrying enough iron or haemoglobin, you don’t carry enough oxygen, your body prioritises the vital organs, so it tends to send your blood centrally. That means less is getting out to your hands and feet and may make them feel colder. Um, if you’ve got thyroid issues, if your thyroid your thyroid hormones also control your metabolism, and that generates warmth and keeps your temperature up. “If your thyroid isn’t working effectively, if it’s not making enough of that hormone, it affects your body temperature, your cold sensitivity goes up because you’re no longer able to maintain your temperature.” Circulation issues: “If you’ve got circulation issues in general, for instance, if you’ve got diabetes, if you smoke, if you’ve got peripheral vascular disease, that sort of thing, anything that affects the circulation to your primaries that is going to make you feel colder. And finally, there is a specific condition that I know lots of our viewers have spoken about and written in about before. "Raynaud’s phenomenon is where you get spasm of the blood vessels in your hands and your feet, for instance, in your fingers, and it can make them colder, make them change colour, or even make them go pale. It can be extremely uncomfortable. Not only can it make your hands and feet feel cold, but it can also be exacerbated and triggered by the cold as well. And then when the blood flow returns, often they go very red and throbbing. are uncomfortable. All of these things are things to think about if you are finding the cold particularly problematic.”