Hypothermia News and Research

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When exposed to cold temperatures, your body begins to lose heat faster than it can be produced. Prolonged exposure to cold will eventually use up your body’s stored energy. The result is hypothermia, or abnormally low body temperature. Body temperature that is too low affects the brain, making the victim unable to think clearly or move well. This makes hypothermia particularly dangerous because a person may not know it is happening and won’t be able to do anything about it.

Hypothermia is most likely at very cold temperatures, but it can occur even at cool temperatures (above 40°F) if a person becomes chilled from rain, sweat, or submersion in cold water.

People cannot perceive decrease in body temperature when exercising, study finds

In a study published this month in Physiology & Behavior, research teams at the University of Tsukuba, led by Takeshi Nishiyasu, and at Niigata University of Health and Welfare, led by Tomomi Fujimoto, have found that, when exercising, people cannot perceive decreases in their core body temperature caused by the cold as well as they can when they are resting. This research has implications for recreational activities in colder climates, such as hiking and skiing.

20 Aug 2021

Plastic drapes lower the incidence of hypothermia in very low birth-weight neonates

Most babies born prematurely or with health problems are quickly whisked away to the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU) where they might require assisted heating devices to regulate their temperature.

1 Jul 2021

Clinical trial shows induced hypothermia after cardiac arrest does not improve survival

Since 2005, the guidelines for the care of unconscious cardiac arrest patients have been to cool the body temperature down to 33 degrees Celsius. A large, randomized clinical trial led by Lund University and Region Skåne in Sweden has shown that this treatment does not improve survival. The study is published in the New England Journal of Medicine.

16 Jun 2021

Moderate therapeutic hypothermia does not improve neurological outcomes after cardiac arrest

In patients receiving therapeutic hypothermia after suffering out-of-hospital cardiac arrest, those who were cooled below 31 degrees Celsius (about 88 degrees Fahrenheit) for 24 hours showed no difference in terms of death or poor neurological outcomes at six months compared with patients receiving guideline-recommended cooling of 34 C (about 93 F).

18 May 2021

New low cost, non-electric warmer effectively treats infant hypothermia

Neonatal hypothermia -- which occurs when an infant's core body temperature falls below the normal range needed to maintain health -- contributes to approximately one million deaths each year, and countless cases of stunted growth, almost exclusively in low- and middle-income countries.

7 May 2021

Study highlights the importance of ensuring newborns have close contact with parents during COVID-19

New research from WHO and partners shows that the COVID-19 pandemic is severely affecting the quality of care given to small and sick newborns, resulting in unnecessary suffering and deaths.

16 Mar 2021

Intentional cooling of the body may help improve acute respiratory distress syndrome

A tenth of all intensive care unit patients worldwide, and many critical patients with COVID-19, have acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS). Therapeutic hypothermia, an intentional cooling of the body, has been suggested as a way to improve ARDS.

23 Feb 2021

Lower diagnostic threshold for fever in older people may help detect COVID-19 cases earlier

Researchers have explored heritable factors, age and body mass on temperature variation between humans. One notable finding is that the current threshold for detecting fever in older adults may be too high, precluding the ability to detect COVID-19 early on

2 Feb 2021

Change in mental status or falls may be misinterpreted as infection in nursing homes

There is a widespread belief that a change in the mental status or an increase in falls in a nursing home resident may indicate an underlying infection.

9 Dec 2020

Homeless shelters grapple with COVID safety as cold creeps in

Ben Barnes has slept in abandoned buildings, hallways and alleys. For the past year or so, he's been staying at the city's largest homeless shelter, Pacific Garden Mission, in the shadows of the famous skyline.

16 Nov 2020

Study: Cold weather is responsible for almost all temperature-related deaths

With the number of extreme weather days rising around the globe in recent years due to global warming, it is no surprise that there has been an upward trend in hospital visits and admissions for injuries caused by high heat over the last several years.

18 Aug 2020

Early blood test could detect birth asphyxia

An early blood test could detect which babies deprived of oxygen at birth are at risk of serious neurodisabilities like cerebral palsy and epilepsy.

4 Aug 2020

Researchers report a key breakthrough to help protect newborns from brain damage

Oxygen deprivation can be the worst start to a newborn's life, resulting in brain damage, epilepsy, developmental delays and death.

23 Jun 2020

Remote continuous monitoring easily, effectively detects seizures in at-risk neonates

A team of researchers from Children's Hospital of Philadelphia has demonstrated how to easily and effectively monitor for seizures in newborn infants, catching more instances than typical methods and improving the quality of care for infants in hospitals that lack the on-site resources to detect these seizures.

22 Jun 2020

Neural circuits that control hibernation-like behaviors discovered in mice

The dream of suspended animation has long captivated the human imagination, reflected in countless works of mythology and fiction, from King Arthur and Sleeping Beauty to Captain America and Han Solo.

11 Jun 2020

UTHealth experts successfully treat 3-week-old infant with severe COVID-19

In one of the first reported cases of its kind, a 3-week-old infant in critical condition recovered from COVID-19 due to rapid recognition and treatment by physicians from McGovern Medical School at The University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston/

28 Apr 2020

Therapeutic hypothermia effectively targets brain injury sites

When a newborn suffers lack of oxygen before or during birth, doctors have very little time to save precious brain tissue.

20 Feb 2020

Braincool completes patient recruitment to study Cooral System for prevention of Oral Mucositis

BrainCool AB, a Swedish medical device innovator, and a world leader in medical cooling technology for therapeutic hypothermia (brain cooling) and oncology, is pleased to announce that it has completed patient recruitment in the Scandinavian multi-center pivotal trial of 180 patients to investigate the patented Cooral® System for prevention of Oral Mucositis, one of the most debilitating side-effects of both standard and high-dose chemotherapeutic oncology treatments.

11 Feb 2020

Combination of two immune defense strategies could afford alternative approach to treating sepsis

The human immune system uses two pre-programmed strategies to tackle infection. One is fever, a resistance mechanism that tries to eliminate a pathogen by raising the body's temperature.

23 Jan 2020

Study suggests average body temperature in humans falling

For decades, people have considered the average human body temperature to be 98.6 F, or 37 degrees Celsius. However, a new study published January 7, 2020, in the journal eLifeindicates this may no longer be the norm – and the researchers suggest a reason for their observed drop in average temperature.

13 Jan 2020