Stanford researchers' cooling glove 'better than steroids' – and helps solve physiological myst

"Equal to or substantially better than steroids … and it's not illegal."

This is the sort of claim you see in spam email subject lines, not in discussions of mammalian thermoregulation. Even the man making the statement, Stanford biology researcher Dennis Grahn, seems bemused. "We really stumbled on this by accident," he said. "We wanted to get a model for studying heat dissipation.

But for more than a decade now, Grahn and biology Professor H. Craig Heller have been pursuing a serendipitous find: by taking advantage of specialized heat-transfer veins in the palms of hands, they can rapidly cool athletes' core temperatures – and dramatically improve exercise recovery and performance.

The team is finally nearing a commercial version of their specialized heat extraction device, known as "the glove," and they've seen their share of media coverage. But what hasn't been discussed is why the glove works the way it does, and what that tells us about why our muscles become fatigued

When you cool the muscle cell, you return the enzyme to the active state, essentially resetting the muscle's state of fatigue.

Wow cool. This is awsome. Can this be used to bring peoples temperature down when they are sick aiding the healing process as well? I cant wait to get my hands on one of these...

Source...

And, that would be found here.

Second line.

reply to post by Bedlam


Added to OP, thanks.

reply to post by onequestion


It's a neat device, can't wait till they get that on the market.

Figured I'd drop the link in, it's worth reading about.

Thought I had seen this mentioned in a military pub...

here...

You can buy one for $895 now, at Avacore

reply to post by Bedlam


Nice id like to try that paired with jiu jitsu or boxing.

Seems as an amazing find. This can make future sportsmen and soldiers into "supermen"

Although I am interested in the long-term effect of using these to human body. I do not know how much data we have on how human body deals with numerous rapid core temperature changes in long term and how can this affect bodily functions.

Sounds interesting but I'd like to see more examples of the results. If this was a natural healthier alternative yo steroids it would seem like it would be everywhere. If lance Armstrong didn't se it then it must not be good. so maybe if it sounds like an infomercial it's because well, they are selling something.

reply to post by onequestion

Wow cool. This is awsome. Can this be used to bring peoples temperature down when they are sick aiding the healing process as well? I cant wait to get my hands on one of these...

The high temperature is the body's immune response to a virus or infection...the heat is what helps to kill the virus in the body...unfortunately, it can also harm the body too.

So yeah, i can see this technique being handy medically to regulate temperature, for cases where a virus or other pathogen over stimulates the cyto immune response, so we can maintain a high - but not TOO high a temperature.

reply to post by Cabin


That and the problem of over exercise (or detect fatigue) . The rule of thumb to everything is to be moderate this solves a high percentage of problem that anyone could get into in life.

There are mechanical (not simply biological) limits to the body. Bilogical limits deals with the speed limits and system replenishment regarding to biochimical reaction, signals and supply. But there are also mechanical limits on how many times lets say a valve can open and close in your heart (or a joint, any cartilage etc) sure most of them are biologically maintained but that takes time and depend on other system dependencies, priorities or presure...

Great article and good replies. Thanks for the article

I heard something similar to this a long time ago and remember experimenting with running cold water over my wrists and hands after exercising - it did seem to make a difference in how quickly I cooled down.

I think it's interesting that mammals have a 'radiator' in a particular part of the body:

Heller and Grahn discovered that bears and, in fact, nearly all mammals have built-in radiators: hairless areas of the body that feature extensive networks of veins very close to the surface of the skin.

Rabbits have them in their ears, rats have them in their tails, dogs have them in their tongues. Heat transfer with the environment overwhelmingly occurs on these relatively small patches of skin."

So cool (hur) that they've worked out how to use a vacuum system to target these areas and keep them within the vasoconstriction threshold. Also great that they can raise body temperature to normal levels far more rapidly than other techniques - that could save a lot of lives.

Current research is showing that inflammatory processes in the body are contributing factors to all kinds of degenerative conditions - Alzheimer's in particular comes to mind - I wonder if devices like this could help stop decline and aid recovery for nervous system damage?

www.news-medical.net...

New hypothesis emphasizes the value of anti-inflammatory approaches to prevent Alzheimer's disease

Herrup believes three three key steps that are needed for an individual to progress from this natural path to the full spectrum of Alzheimer-s clinical symptoms: an initiating injury that is probably vascular in nature; an inflammatory response that is both chronic and unique to Alzheimer-s; and a cellular change of state, a one-way cell biological door that permanently alters the physiology of neurons and several other cell types in the Alzheimer-s disease brain.
"The initiating injury might trigger a protective response in the brain cells," Herrup said. "But the real problem is that in the elderly the response doesn't know when to quit. It continues even after the injury itself subsides. In the end, the real damage is done by the persistence of the response and not by the injury, itself."

MysterX makes a really good point too - designer temperature profiles to fight different diseases might be a great medical tool for aiding and suppressing the body's natural responses.

Originally posted by MysterX
The high temperature is the body's immune response to a virus or infection...the heat is what helps to kill the virus in the body...unfortunately, it can also harm the body too.

So yeah, i can see this technique being handy medically to regulate temperature, for cases where a virus or other pathogen over stimulates the cyto immune response, so we can maintain a high - but not TOO high a temperature

Originally posted by Bedlam
Thought I had seen this mentioned in a military pub...

here...

You can buy one for $895 now, at Avacore

So this hot yoga stuff is just a steaming load of BS?

Originally posted by mbkennel

Originally posted by Bedlam
Thought I had seen this mentioned in a military pub...

here...

You can buy one for $895 now, at Avacore

So this hot yoga stuff is just a steaming load of BS?

I think I've talked the guys into buying one for work for 'research'. Will have to see if I can make a business case, other than 'it looks interesting'.