Regional Difference Between Finger and Forearm Vasomotion in Postprandial Human Subjects

摘要

The present study was conducted to investigate the effect of food ingestion on finger and forearm vasomotor responses to thermal and cardiovascular stimuli. Four healthy males volunteered for the experiment. The subjects wore only shorts and exercised for 40 min on a cycle ergometer. Finger and forearm blood flow were measured by venous occulusion plethysmography using temperature-compensated mercury-in-Silastic strain gauges. Oesophageal temperature and skin temperature at seven sites were measured with thermistors. Heart rate and oxygen consumption were also recorded. The slope of the regression line showing the relationship between finger blood flow and oesophageal temperature was steeper with food intake than without. Food ingestion did not affect the slope of the regression line showing the relationship between forearm blood flow and oesophageal temperature.Finger vasodilation induced by exercise was facilitated by feeding, whereas forearm vasodilation was not. These observations indicate that food ingestion facilitates vasodilation only in the fingers and, therefore, suggest a regional difference in cutaneous vasomotor response to thermal and cardiovascular stimuli in the postprandial subjects. Since rich arteriovenous anatomoses exist exclusively in such acral part of the body, vasomotor drive to a special vascular structure might be mainly modulated by food ingestion.