DOI: 10.

1113/EP087450

HUMANS: A HOMEOTHERMIC ANIMAL THAT NEEDS PERTURBATION?

Mike Tipton
Extreme Environments Laboratory
Dept. Sport & Exercise Science
University of Portsmouth,
Portsmouth PO1 2ER.
michael.tipton@port.ac.uk

I have just returned from an excellent Physiology & Pharmacology of Temperature

Regulation meeting in Split where Experimental Physiology sponsored the student
prizes for the best oral presentations. The meeting included several papers on the
benefits of thermal therapies for physiological function. This begs the question, why
do these work? Perhaps humans have become too comfortable? Our technical
ability to control our environment has meant that we can be sedentary,
physiologically unresponsive/unchallenged and, as a result, increasingly unhealthy.
This is well recognised in terms of the impact of physical inactivity, but it also seems
to apply to our ability to control our thermal environment. Perhaps this, plus the
decline in the amount of physical activity-related heat production, has made us
“thermostatic”.

Humans are homeostatic animals, seeking a relatively constant internal environment

in terms of temperature, biochemistry, blood gases etc. However, it is becoming
increasingly apparent that, in terms of thermal balance at least, it is beneficial if the
dynamic equilibrium that produces this homeostasis (homeothermy) is challenged
and stress-related responses are evoked. Cultures such as the Scandinavians and
Japanese have known this for many years. Ofuro bathing is a component of Japan‟s
national culture and identity, and it is believed that healthy persons may benefit from
the physiological effects of hot-water immersion on the body‟s homeostatic systems
(Becker, 2009; Choukroun & Varene, 1990; Hayasaka et al. 2010; Kataoka &

This is an Accepted Article that has been peer-reviewed and approved for publication in the
Experimental Physiology, but has yet to undergo copy-editing and proof correction. Please cite this
article as an Accepted Article; doi: 10.1113/EP087450.

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Yoshida, 2005). Others adopt more idiosyncratic approaches, Thomas Jefferson
used a cold foot bath every morning for six decades to „maintain his good health‟.
Many claim health benefits from regular whole-body cold water immersion (Tipton et
al. 2017).

More recently, claims for the benefits of challenging the thermal status of the body
have been extended to include less healthy individuals. In general, we have arrived
at a situation where many humans are so thermostatic that the perturbations that
were once caused by exercise and exposure to hot and cold environments, must
now be provided by bespoke thermal therapeutic interventions. It seems that many
have fallen below the low levels of exercise/thermal stress necessary for a beneficial
hormetic response (Mattson, 2008; Peake et al. 2015).

So it is that in the last few years we have seen numerous scientific papers reporting
that exposure of otherwise sedentary healthy and unhealthy individuals to static,
local or whole-body heating, cooling or a combination of both, is beneficial for a wide
range of physiological responses including: resistance to cardiovascular disease and
mortality (Kunutsor et al. 2017; Laukkanen et al. 2015); endothelial function and
arterial stiffness (Brunt et al. 2016); walking ability and lower limb perfusion; shear
pattern, blood pressure and circulating endothelin-1 concentrations (Thomas et al.
2016; Chiesa et al. 2016; Neff et al. 2016); glucose metabolism (Kimball et al. 2018);
autonomic nervous activity (Kuwahata et al. 2011), cerebral protection (Coombs &
Tremblay, 2918) and stress resistance (Brunt et al. 2018). Furthermore, both hot
(Naumann et al. 2017) and cold (Van Tulleken et al. 2018; Van Tulleken, 2018)
water exposures have been reported to improve mental health.

Although the efficacy of these thermal interventions is, sadly, a possible

consequence of the capability and inclination of modern humans to be thermostatic,
this is an interesting area that requires more work. The various doses of: heat and
cold, local and general exposure, skin and deep body temperature changes,
necessary to promote optimum responses need to be established. Whilst it is not
easy to separate exercise and heat as factors in these beneficial adaptations, the
fact that passive heat and cold exposure have beneficial effects supports the

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hypothesis that whilst humans are homeotherms, this homeothermy needs to be
challenged if we are to remain healthy. That is, the dynamic equilibrium that
underpins homeostasis needs to be perturbed. This hypothesis is unlikely to be
limited to just thermal balance; one also wonders about the possibility of cross- or
combined stressor therapies. Watch this space.

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