Good Question: How Does Our Body Regulate Temperature?
MINNEAPOLIS (WCCO) -- If you've been shivering in the past few days, your body is working harder than you think. Rich from White Bear wrote to us wanting to know: Do we use more energy to cool ourselves down or warm ourselves up? How does our body regulate temperature? Good Question.
Most things on Earth are usually closer to the temperature of their surroundings. Mammals and birds are the exception. In Minnesota, the outside temperatures can range from -20 degrees to 95 degrees, but, for the most part, the human body maintains a constant temperature.
"Our bodies want to be around 98.6 degrees and it will control that very tightly," says Mark Blegen, a professor of physiology at St. Catherine University.
The hypothalamus is the control center of the brain. Among many other functions, it monitors the temperature of the blood, body and skin. It's considered something of a thermostat for the human body.
"If it senses any change one way or another, different things are going to go into effect," Blegen says.
When people get cold, two things happen. First, the blood vessels will constrict to move the blood from the perimeter of the body to the core. That's why hands and feet are colder than the core. Second, humans shiver when they're cold. Shivering is a low-grade exercise that generates heat. Metabolism can increase by three to four times by shivering.
The opposite happens when people get too warm. The blood vessels dilate and move heat from the core or periphery of the body, which is why we sweat.
"My educated guess would be we expend more energy, consume more oxygen and burn more calories keeping warm as opposed to cool," says Blegen.