July 31, 2025
Thomas P. Costello/Imagn Content Services, LLC
Summertime means amusement parks and rollercoasters for many people, but these rides can pose certain health risks, especially for people with underlying medical issues. Above, people ride the Jersey Devil roller coaster at Six Flags Great Adventure in Jackson Township in 2021.
I have been phobic about roller coasters since I was 4 when my dad took me on the Galaxi in Seattle Center's Fun Forest. I wailed the entire ride, especially as the coaster lurched up the "Chain Lift Hill."
I paid my father back a few years later when he took me to Disneyland, and I refused to ride anything except It's a Small World.
The next time I was forced onto a roller coaster was as a teenager at the 1986 world's fair in Vancouver. The theme of Expo 86 was transportation and communication. Attractions across the 173-acre site ranged from the "McBarge," a giant, floating McDonald's restaurant, to a high-speed train in the Japanese Pavilion.
But the only thing I remember as one of 22 million visitors that summer is my friend making me go on the Scream Machine, an extreme roller coaster for the time. It featured a corkscrew and a vertical drop from the height of a 10-story building. The 2-minute ride hit a top speed of 55 mph.
This may not seem exciting to modern amusement park aficionados spoiled by the likes of Six Flags Great Adventure former Kingda Ka. Once the world's tallest roller coaster with a 456-foot tower and speeds of 128 mph, it was demolished in February to make way for an even more frightening affair.
After the Scream Machine, I managed to avoid roller coasters until a colleague at The Intelligencer in Doylestown, where I was a reporter, dragged me to Dorney Park & Wildwater Kingdom for the opening of Steel Force in 1997. Back then, it was the tallest roller coaster on the East Coast, with a main drop of 205 feet, more than 50 feet taller than the Statue of Liberty.
As I waited in line, I anxiously questioned people who had ridden it about how scary they found it. One guy pointed to the nearby grass, asking if I could see the bolts that had fallen off the roller coaster.
It was nonsense, of course.
But my columnist friend reported this exchange, and the fact that I started crying before we were even strapped into the car, to his readers.
I haven't been on a roller coaster since then. Reading recent stories about how people had to climb down 160 feet from the Siren's Curse roller coaster in Sandusky, Ohio, after it malfunctioned for the fourth time, I have felt justified in my fear.
But I also decided it was time to face my anxiety and get the facts about what — barring mechanical failures — roller coasters may actually do to our bodies. Here is what I learned:
Motion sickness happens when the brain gets conflicting signals from the inner ear and eyes to the brain. The Cleveland Clinic explains it as a "confusion" between the senses and the brain. This confusion occurs on roller coaster due to their abrupt stops, sudden plummets and loop-de-loops. Interestingly, a 2017 study that relied on virtual roller coaster rides found that people experience significantly more motion sickness when moving forward than when moving backward.
Research shows that roller coasters induce the fight-or-flight response. For some people, the stress experienced during roller coaster rides is actually a positive form of stress, known as eustress. For instance, a 2006 study that examined how riding roller coasters impacted people with asthma found that even though lung function decreased due to screaming and excitement, the feeling of being short of breath also decreased. The stress seemed to have a positive impact on the participants.
Other research suggests that people with higher levels of dopamine, a chemical related to thrill-seeking behavior, may be more apt to seek out intense physical experiences, such as riding roller coasters. The ability to enjoy roller coasters, in other words, may be related to brain chemistry.
The answer to this question is still a bit unclear. A 2009 study that looked at high gravitational forces, or G-forces, induced by roller coasters, concluded that "there appears to be an extremely low risk of TBI due to the head motions induced by roller coaster rides." But a study from 2017 found roller coasters "may lead to brain displacements and strains comparable to mild soccer headers." While there may not be an immediate risk of acute brain injury from riding roller coasters, more research is needed into the long-term impacts, the study concluded.
Not surprisingly, the adrenaline rush of roller coasters may cause an increase in blood pressure and heart rate, but these tend to be temporary.
Research from 2007 found that volunteers wearing electrocardiograms hit their highest heart rates during the steep, 30-second climb up to the top of the coaster's first hill as they anticipated its 4-second fall. Temporary spikes in heart rates are usually benign for healthy young people, but they can put people with underlying cardiac conditions at risk of heart arrhythmia and other adverse health issues.
A 2017 case study in Pediatrics examined a child who experienced a stroke after riding a roller coaster. Pediatric strokes from roller coasters appear to be rare, but parents should be aware of early signs like facial droop, arm weakness and speech problems, the paper concluded.
