Biology Forum Human Biology Hypothermia in humans

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    • #6754
      vlc1500
      Participant

      Other than body mass and insulation, are there really any major factors that might cause hypothermia in a human being? My entire biology class needs to make a laboratory in which we test hypothermia. We are going to do an actual lab in which students of various builds will go outside and their blood pressure and body temp will be found. People in the group wanted to test for sleep deprivation and food intake. Is it me or should’nt we have only one variable and a control group? It will be tougher for us to make a conclusion by having various variables.

    • #66096
      kjle
      Participant

      there’s no doubt it will be harder with more variables, but if you are only considering one, your results will be limited, and possibly not truly accurate

    • #66109
      vlc1500
      Participant

      only thing is, we are going to do the lab on tuesday during a 1 hour and 30 minute period, so I wanted to get the most we could out of the experiment while keeping it simple. What i meant was that my peers wanted to do 2 variables intertwined….. with the same people.

      For example i am of medium build and i do not eat breakfast…… and i have a friend who is also a test subject and he has a large build and eats breakfast. After the experiment it turns out that my larger friend has a higher body temperature than me. I do not feel that it is completley proven that having a larger build will keep u warmer. Same with making a conclusion on breakfast.

      by the way, does anyone know of any other factors that help or stop hypothermia from happening?

    • #66116
      kjle
      Participant

      I see the problem. It probably wouldn’t work to include all these variables into the one experiment. You need a control for each variable, otherwise your results, like you said won’t be accurate. And if you don’t have time to include all of these variables with separate control it won’t be accurate.

    • #66255
      vlc1500
      Participant

      does race affect thermoregulation even though everyone in my class has been living in Canada since they’ve been born?

    • #66258
      mith
      Participant

      Living in canada does not change race :). Perhaps you want to know what extent does genes and environment affect thermoregulation?

    • #66275
      sachin
      Participant

      Hypothermia..Study……. but for what?

    • #66344
      MrMistery
      Participant

      lol: the 4 races: white, black, yellow and canadian…

    • #66357
      mith
      Participant

      I had to take a class on that, they told me races don’t exist, and you should use grouping by geographic origin instead. They said that molecular biology suggests 5 "races".

    • #66783
      vlc1500
      Participant

      well, what i meant was " has everyone in my class been acclimatized to toronto?". And if we have been completley acclimatized to toronto, then it would reduce the chance of coming to a false conclusion.

      So, what variables change body temp the most?
      Eating breakfast, enough sleep, are there any others? Which ones gives us the best chance of getting hypothermia? Does anyone know any other big ones i might be missing?

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