TY - JOUR
T1 - Seasonal variation of non-shivering thermogenesis (NST) during mild cold exposure
AU - Nishimura, Takayuki
AU - Motoi, Midori
AU - Egashira, Yuka
AU - Choi, Damee
AU - Aoyagi, Kiyoshi
AU - Watanuki, Shigeki
N1 - Funding Information:
This study was supported in part by JSPS KAKENHI (23247044, 26251050).
Publisher Copyright:
© 2015 Nishimura et al.; licensee BioMed Central.
PY - 2015
Y1 - 2015
N2 - Background: The physiological function of non-shivering thermogenesis (NST) has been investigated in recent years, and some studies have discussed the importance of NST with respect to human cold adaptation. The present study aimed to clarify individual and seasonal variations in NST that occurred as a result of mild cold exposure.Methods: Seventeen male university students participated in the present study during summer and winter. The climate chamber used was programmed so that ambient temperature dropped from 28°C to 16°C over an 80-min period. Physiological parameters of test subjects were recorded during the experiments.Results: Increases in oxygen intake (VO2) during cold exposure were significantly greater without shivering in winter than they were in summer. Respiratory exchange ratio (RER) was significantly lower during thermoneutral baseline and cold exposure in winter than it was during the same periods in summer. In addition, there was a significant negative correlation between ΔVO2 and ΔRER.Conclusions: Increase of VO2 without shivering indicated increase of NST, and decrease of RER depends on the metabolization of fat in winter. These results suggested that NST activity was activated by seasonal acclimatization, and individual variation of NST depends on individual variation of fat metabolism.
AB - Background: The physiological function of non-shivering thermogenesis (NST) has been investigated in recent years, and some studies have discussed the importance of NST with respect to human cold adaptation. The present study aimed to clarify individual and seasonal variations in NST that occurred as a result of mild cold exposure.Methods: Seventeen male university students participated in the present study during summer and winter. The climate chamber used was programmed so that ambient temperature dropped from 28°C to 16°C over an 80-min period. Physiological parameters of test subjects were recorded during the experiments.Results: Increases in oxygen intake (VO2) during cold exposure were significantly greater without shivering in winter than they were in summer. Respiratory exchange ratio (RER) was significantly lower during thermoneutral baseline and cold exposure in winter than it was during the same periods in summer. In addition, there was a significant negative correlation between ΔVO2 and ΔRER.Conclusions: Increase of VO2 without shivering indicated increase of NST, and decrease of RER depends on the metabolization of fat in winter. These results suggested that NST activity was activated by seasonal acclimatization, and individual variation of NST depends on individual variation of fat metabolism.
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U2 - 10.1186/s40101-015-0051-9
DO - 10.1186/s40101-015-0051-9
M3 - Article
C2 - 25858699
AN - SCOPUS:84927932508
SN - 1880-6791
VL - 34
JO - Journal of Physiological Anthropology
JF - Journal of Physiological Anthropology
IS - 1
M1 - 11
ER -
