Referenced Article by: By Annie Lennon on July 6, 2023 — Fact checked by Jill Seladi-Schulman, Ph.D.
Understanding the Thermoneutral Zone: Maintaining Optimal Body Temperature
The thermoneutral zone is a range of temperatures in which the body doesn't have to increase its metabolic rate or exert more energy to maintain its ideal core temperature of 37℃elsius or 98.6 Fahrenheit. Studies show that the zone's lower limit is 28℃ or 82.4F. Below this, the body expends more energy to maintain its ideal temperature. One of the key ways it does this is by shivering — when key muscle groups involuntarily contract to produce heat.
At higher temperatures, the body uses other mechanisms to cool down, such as sweating and vasodilation of blood vessels at the skin surface to increase heat loss. However, while the thermoneutral zone's lower range has been established, its upper limit is still uncertain.One study suggests that the upper limit may stand at around 32℃ (89.6F) as this is when humans start to sweat. Another study, however, noted that the metabolic rate starts to increase at 40℃ (104F). Further research into the upper limit of the thermoneutral zone could inform policies on working conditions, sports, medication, and international travel.
As a follow-up study of a 2021 investigation, researchers at the University of Roehampton in England conducted a second set of experiments to investigate the upper limit of the thermoneutral zone. They found that the thermoneutral zone's upper limit likely lies between 40℃ (104F) and 50℃ (122F).
"The findings appear to shed more precise light upon the body's responses to sustained heat and humidity, and upon both the nature and mechanisms of enhanced metabolic rate that also arise in response to such conditions," Dr. J. Wes Ulm, a bioinformatic scientific resource analyst, and biomedical data specialist at the National Institutes of Health, not involved in the study, told Medical News Today.
28℃ (82.4F) and 50% relative air humidity (RAH)
40℃ (104F) and 50% RAH
50℃ (122F) and 50% RAH
The increased metabolic rate at the 40℃-25% RAH condition was not accompanied by an increase in core temperature. However, participants in the 50℃-50% RAH condition experienced a rise in core temperature of 1℃, or 1.8 Fahrenheit.The researchers noted that these findings suggest that the body is able to dissipate heat at 40℃ (104F), but not at 50℃ (122F). "The findings do seem likely to vary by humidity," Dr. Mark Guido, an endocrinologist with Novant Health Forsyth Endocrine Consultants in Winston Salem, North Carolina, not involved in the study, told Medical News Today. "In the study, there was some evidence that the resting metabolic rate was higher at higher humidities, even at the same temperature. It seems like humidity also plays a large role in the metabolic rate," he added.
How does climate affect metabolic rate and health?
MNT also spoke with Dr. Ulm: "The body, in general, will find ways to activate the various feedback loops needed to achieve homeostasis, i.e., the painstaking regulation of physiological processes that allow for the complex biochemistry of organs and tissues to be carried out efficiently and properly. Body temperature and metabolic rate are integral components of this delicate dance, and for those who are resident in hotter climates year-round, it may be more likely for such countervailing feedback loops to be active and functioning. This may be attributable both to heritable factors - for communities present in such conditions longer-term - and to short-term adaptations more generally. It's similar to the way permanent residents of high-altitude regions will acclimate with compensatory mechanisms, for example, in their red blood cell physiology and other aspects of oxygen-carrying capacity, both acutely - as through iron turnover rates - and chronically," he said.
MNT spoke with Dr. Ulm about the study's limitations. "As always with such studies, there is the question of how representative the cohort sample of subjects is of both the general and specific populations being surveyed, in regard to the physiological characteristics and responses being measured. The studies, in this case, were also particularly challenging given the ambient conditions, and there is also the perennial issue of the applicability of the experimental environment to real-world correlates,"