This presentation from the Insights from Comparative Physiology symposium explored a couple of interesting points on thermoneutrality and vasoconstrictor tone in Women:
- Transmission of sympathetic nerve activity into vasoconstrictor tone is offset in women – this mediates there pre-menopausal lower cardiovascular risk compared to males. This is due to differences in sex hormones and beta-adrenergic receptors.
- Thermoneutrality matters. Many studies ignore comparative physiology by not taking into account the ambient temperature in which the study was carried out in. Mice have a higher lower critical temperature (LCT) than human’s so carrying out studies on them at human’s ambient temperature (20 degrees) will increase their metabolic rate disproportionately, increase their blood pressure, increase their lifespan etc. so we need to take this into account. We can not ignore this basic principle!
Sports & Exercise Medicine - An early career perspective 