Game of Seasons - Body temperature and its regulation (part 1)
Everyone has a favorite season. And I'm not talking about food (a topic that somehow is always welcome) seasoning, I'm talking about the year's seasons.
The eternal argument about which is the best time of the year, is divided in two rather large opposing groups: The Summer Bunch (TSB) and The Winter Bunch (TWB). As author of this article, scientific, and disclosing and advertising the uttermost importance of the scientific method and objectivity, of course I have to abstain of taking any particular side; only commenting that TSB is the worst kind of human being that could ever exist. I've nothing against them. As a matter of fact, I've a friend that belongs to TSB. Or many... Or all of them. They are all wrong, according to my scientific point of view.
Beforehand, lets inspect the canonical premises of TSB:
Boobs: Of course, way to go boobs! (or the physical trait for which each person has a feeling). Either looking at them or showing them off. Yet, if TSB has to wait for summer to enjoy that feature in life; what do they do the rest of the year?
Vacations: Yeah, because to have to work is not a good option, unless you like your job (in which case you're even WORSE than the average TSB member). Resting is great; but, are you a miserable person the rest of the year?
HEAT: The last and worse one, horrific, the one that started this whole article. HEAT, my kryptonite. How can any thinking being enjoy high temperatures? And they don't even really love it, because when those REALLY HOT days start even they sweat it and confess that they doubt about their TSB membership, and want the colder days to come back, starting in a certain point: we are all sweating like pigs.
Leaving differences aside, there's something that always called my attention: We know that our body temperature is 36.7°C, when the environmental temperature is edging that range the air conditioning starts working everywhere, t-shirts come out of the closet, small dresses too (we've to admit it, that is a point favoring TSB) and EVERYONE wants to submerge at any available body of water around (river, lake, sea, ocean, pool, pit full of water, hose... ANY!) When it is, say 30°C, shouldn't we be feeling cold? How can we withstand temperatures higher than our natural body temperature?? and, even more important, WHERE DOES THAT "36.7°C" COME FROM?
Cook it slow
As every worthy story, the thing started in a sauna. Back then in 1775, an English scientist called Charles Blagden was obsessed with understanding how do living things respond to high temperatures. Then, he did what anyone would've done: He got a dog, a steak, two eggs and himself inside a chamber built only for that purpose. For 45 minutes that particular group was exposed to temperatures as high as 127°C. The guy and the dog came out in perfect conditions (a little sweated, no big deal); yet, the rest of the group was ready to be salted and served. With a simple (and edgy) experiment, Charles verified that, obviously, living animals had the ability to regulate their temperature, unlike the pork chop that ended up a bit overcooked.
We are weak
If you think about it, we are very whinny about our thermal amplitude tolerance. The truth is, the range of temperatures we are "ok" with is very narrow. Lucky, we are not the only ones. If you look around (the planet) most of the living things live at places that don't go over 50°C, neither they go under 0°C, if we consider that we live in a Universe where temperatures range from -273°C to millions of °C... We've another reason to take a very good care of this little blue pearl close to the Sun. If you liked this post and its informal way of talking about sciences, please, follow me for more! Leave a comment either for good or for bad reviews. I take everything as constructive, and I really appreciate the feedback, even from trolls (at least a troll read it before being himself!). All the previously used images are of my authory or under a CC0 license (Source: pixabay), unless openly stated. All the Images created by me possess a WTFPL licencing and they are free to redistribute, share, copy, paste, modify, sell, crop, paste, clone in whatever way you want.
This gentle range in which we can exist has a lot to do with what shapes us and makes us work, along with its history. We are made, among several other things, of proteins. The way these molecules fold in space and acquire their three-dimensional shape depends on temperature. Over a certain temperature, a protein starts to decay (we say: "Denature") and it can no longer perform its structural role. But the problem starts before that, because proteins not only are the fundamental bricks that build us, many of them are also enzymes, star players of life, that catalyze (hurry) an endless list of chemical reactions that are permanently happening in all our cells. The speed of these enzymatic reactions drastically change with temperature (the time multiplies around 2 to 3 times every 10°C... or so), therefore a small thermal variation can really fuck up that wonder of "being alive".
STAY TUNED
For the next part of this article tomorrow!
Copyrights:
I recently learned about the Wim Hof method (and blogged about it). I've been trying it out this week and it deals a lot with body temperature regulation. Have you looked into it at all? Very interesting stuff.
We ARE a highly adaptive species. And that is the premise that guy is abusing to get a nice profit ($200!). The funny thing is that, this method is not "his" at all, it is called "Tummo meditation" and you can learn it for free at several budhist "temples".
I am aware of the environmental adaptability we have, and the biologic foundations under it (that is upcoming, in the next part of the article). I do not like the "esoteric" tone used for selling that method it tells me only one thing: It is aimed to "sell" not to benefit anyone (to be honest, who in his sane mind needs to expose himself to extreme temperatures? (denaturation also happens by freezing!) Fighting against cold is much harder than fighting against heat... (dammit I don't want to spoil the next part! lol... just wait for it tomorrow :D )
From my understanding, he's been giving away the information for free for quite some time and it's his son who has been working to monetize it. As much as we may disagree, the market is how things get attention. I have friends who know about it only through the marketing paid for by that $200. I learned everything online without paying anything. Then I paid $4 for an iPhone app to explore it further. If it's valuable to me, I'd be okay with paying for the full course. It's like giving gifts to a Shaman, etc. Not everyone can afford to take time off, travel to a buddhist temple, and study for 10 weeks. They can, however, take a 10 week course online. From that perspective, he's providing a valuable service to package that relevant aspects of the information into an easy to learn structure.
The cold exposure has a specific purpose which has been explored by doctors and scientists. It's not a stunt, but designed to impact the (previously considered) autonomous nervous and endocrine systems (from what I've been able to gather so far, learning about it). His methods apparently work in both heat and cold as he ran a marathon in the desert with no water (crazy!).
The concept of profit is not a bad thing, IMO. It's a value exchange. If the value being offered is not worth $200 because I could do it all on my own, then it's not a good exchange. If the value offered is worth more than $200 because I wouldn't get the same quality or consistency on my own, then it's a good value exchange. Just because someone is selling something doesn't automatically devalue that thing or service (IMO). On the contrary, it takes something which is subjective (our personal view of value) and brings it into the objective realm. There are many things in the world which would benefit humanity if they would just be exposed to them, learn them, and do them. But because they are free (like air), they are not valued. They are not scarce. Once something becomes valuable, people take it more seriously ("Hey, I paid good money for this, I might as well get serious about it").
So... with this, you're telling me you get a commission per sale? Notice how more than half of the response talks about "money" and not the method itself.
Notice, how in that marathon he used the "cooling" methods we have embedded in our bodies (sweating and convection). Many times, we are hindered by our clothes!
What commissions are you taking about? I don't get anything. I'm not a member of anything, I just bought an iPhone app. :) I talked about money because that seemed to be your primary hold up based on your comment. There are plenty of vidoes and content out there about his specific method, the parts he took from others, etc, etc.
As to our clothes, I completely agree. We've been around as a species for a long time without them so it stands to reason they aren't necessary for our survival or optimal performance.
I just get very skeptic when something that is technically free (as natural physiologic functions everyone has), is "sold".
"Detoxicate and clean up your system with this ancient method! - How to pee" - $200
This post has been ranked within the top 80 most undervalued posts in the first half of Jan 13. We estimate that this post is undervalued by $2.82 as compared to a scenario in which every voter had an equal say.
See the full rankings and details in The Daily Tribune: Jan 13 - Part I. You can also read about some of our methodology, data analysis and technical details in our initial post.
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