Exercise helps improve the body’s tolerance to extreme cold temps

While exercise is important for maintaining a healthy body weight, boosting metabolism, and improving heart health, it can also even help and guard against some cancers.

Now, a new study has found that exercise can help improve the body’s tolerance to extreme cold and maintain body heat for longer periods.

Researchers from the University of Guelph and the University of Copenhagen conducted the study which was published in The Journal of Physiology.

The study shows how exercise builds muscle strength which can help extend the amount of time a person shivers when exposed to cold.

Shivering is a natural defense against cold and improves heat production. But eventually, the muscles tire and are no longer able to contract enough to keep up shivering.

Improving muscle strength adds more shivering stamina and could be important for people who live in extremely cold environments.

For the study, the researchers exposed a group of mice that had been trained with exercise wheels and mice that hadn’t exercised to cold temperatures. The researchers frequently measured body temperature, changes in weight, food intake, blood sugar levels, and limb and muscle fat tissue as the mice dealt with the cold.

The mice that didn’t exercise lost more weight and were not able to maintain core body temperature as well as the group of mice that used the exercise wheels.

The researchers only tested male mice and next plan to see if the results can be repeated with female mice but the study shows that exercise may be a useful tool for people planning to move to cold climates.

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By Kay Vandette, Earth.com Staff Writer