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As in other mammals, human thermoregulation is an important aspect of homeostasis. In thermoregulation, body heat is generated mostly in the deep organs, especially the liver, brain, and heart, and in contraction of skeletal muscles. [1] Humans have been able to adapt to a great diversity of climates, including hot humid and hot arid.
Thermoregulation is the ability of an organism to keep its body temperature within certain boundaries, even when the surrounding temperature is very different. A thermoconforming organism, by contrast, simply adopts the surrounding temperature as its own body temperature, thus avoiding the need for internal thermoregulation.
Limb length affects the body's surface area, which helps with thermoregulation. Shorter limbs help to conserve heat, while longer limbs help to dissipate heat. [13] Marshall T. Newman argues that this can be observed in Eskimo, who have shorter limbs than other people and are laterally built. [14]
Environmental conditions, primarily temperature and humidity, affect the ability of the mammalian body to thermoregulate. The psychrometric temperature, of which the wet-bulb temperature is the main component, largely limits thermoregulation. It was thought that a wet-bulb temperature of about 35 °C (95 °F) was the highest sustained value ...
Behavioral thermoregulation takes precedence over physiological thermoregulation since necessary changes can be affected more quickly and physiological thermoregulation is limited in its capacity to respond to extreme temperatures. [34] When the core temperature falls, the blood supply to the skin is reduced by intense vasoconstriction. [18]
The degree of this response depends not only on the species, but also on the levels of insulative and metabolic adaptation. [2] Environmental temperatures below the TNZ, the lower critical temperature (LCT), require an organism to increase its metabolic rate to meet the environmental demands for heat. [ 3 ]
In general, warm-bloodedness refers to three separate categories of thermoregulation. Endothermy [a] is the ability of some creatures to control their body temperatures through internal means such as muscle shivering or increasing their metabolism. The opposite of endothermy is ectothermy.
There are numerous factors that directly affect thermal comfort that can be grouped in two categories: Personal factors – characteristics of the occupants such as metabolic rate and clothing level; Environmental factors – which are conditions of the thermal environment, specifically air temperature, mean radiant temperature, air speed and ...