Effects of cold exposure and exercise in a wet, cold antarctic climate

¹ Environmental Health Section, School of Public Health and Tropical Medicine, University of Sydney, Sydney, Australia

Six men were studied before and after 6 weeks of strenuous outdoor work and cold exposure—often in wet clothing—on Heard Island in the Antarctic. Physical fitness increased significantly, while subcutaneous fat and arterial blood pressure decreased significantly. The response of rectal temperature and shivering to a 2-hr period of whole-body cooling did not change significantly (although shivering tended to decrease), suggesting that the reduction in insulation caused by loss of fat was balanced by an increase in the insulation of other tissues. Finger temperature fell more rapidly, there was less cold vasodilatation, and the gradient of skin temperature between elbow and finger increased significantly, suggesting that heat was conserved by means of countercurrent heat exchanges and enhanced vasoconstriction. Discomfort from cold did not change. These results support those of a previous study at Mawson, Antarctica. Frostbite of one subject's hands, which grossly impaired touch sensation and caused marked intolerance to cold, produced no obvious changes in the response to cold of finger temperature.

Submitted on September 8, 1964