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HOW TO COPE WITH COLD? — Interview by Wesley Muyldermans, sports journalist & writer—
WHAT EFFEC T DOES COLD HAVE ON THE BODY?
Our body wants to maintain a constant temperature (homoeotherm). Vital organs, such as our hearts and stomachs, need this to function properly. Our skin has sensitive cold receptors that can detect a sharp drop in skin temperature and pass on this information to the brain. They emit more pulses when cooling down than when warming up and they are also more numerous than heat receptors. Cold receptors are also known as Krause's corpuscles. They can detect cold because they react to tissue shrinkage caused by a drop in temperature. When it’s cold, the blood vessels in the skin contract and blood flow to the surface of our bodies drops. Heat has the opposite effect, as everything opens up to release the excess body heat.
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I CARE ISSUE - ISSUE 3 - 2016
