Re: Old and Cold
- From: "Imno1" <whoha@xxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Wed, 26 Nov 2008 21:06:36 -0800
"arthur wouk" <awouk@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message news:1227745103.272782@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
i have noticed some of this in my mid-80s. i have a friend in his mid-70s______________________________________________________________>
who seem to have lost much skin sensitivity. the luck of the draw.
me too.
I asked my doctor about the possibility that my sensivity to cold was due to a thyroid condition or some metabolic change taking place, but he was about as informative as this article as to cause-which is to say that he couldn't tell me much as to "why "this was happening. Mentioned in the article below is something that hado occurred to me-fat.I think the fact that I carry very little extra fat makes me vulnerable to cold. One thing I have begun to do, and which I recommend to anyone whose feet are chilly at night even when the rest of the body is warm -is to wear heavy socks to bed. I find such socks make it easier to keep warm during the night.
Old and Cold
By C. CLAIBORNE RAY
Q. Does age affect people's ability to endure cold?
A. Studies have found that the body's response to cold changes
significantly over a lifetime, with older people, especially men older
than about 60, less able to maintain their core temperature at a given
cold exposure than young people.
But a 2002 Finnish review in The International Journal of Sports Medicine
also noted that older people had a reduced skin sensitivity to the
cold and a reduced subjective perception of how cold it is, thereby
making them slower to react to protect themselves and more vulnerable to
death from hypothermia.
The skin's protective reaction of constricting surface blood vessels is
slower with age, and the cold-induced rise in metabolic rate is also
weakened in older people, but the mechanism is unknown.
Cold sensitivity at any age is related to general ill health, especially
an abnormally low body mass index and other factors like thyroid
malfunction, so older people with these problems may feel more
uncomfortable in the cold.
In mapping the temperature sensitivity of the body surface over the life
span, a 1998 study reported in the journal Somatosensory & Motor Research
found that the greatest age-related changes took place in the
extremities, especially the feet, where sensitivity thresholds often
become too large to measure.
Readers are invited to submit questions by mail to Question,
Science Times, The New York Times, 620 8th Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10018,
or by e-mail to question@xxxxxxxxxxxx
Copyright 2008 The New York Times Company
--
"be wary of mathematicians..especially when they speak the truth."
--sT. Augustine
to email me, delete blackhole. from my return address
.
- Prev by Date: Re: Obama's Sex, Drug & Murder Secrets Revealed!
- Next by Date: Re: Why the Barack Obama Birth Certificate Issue Is Legitimate
- Previous by thread: Ammunition
- Next by thread: People Helping Retired People Make Money
- Index(es):
Relevant Pages
|
