Forearm cutaneous vascular and sudomotor responses to whole body passive heat stress in young smokers

摘要

The purpose of this study was to compare smokers and nonsmokers' sudomotor and cutaneous vascular responses to whole body passive heat stress. Nine regularly smoking (SMK: 29 ± 9 yr; 10 ± 6 cigarettes/day) and 13 nonsmoking (N-SMK: 27 ± 8 yr) males were passively heated until core temperature (T_C) increased 1.5°C from baseline. Forearm local sweat rate (LSR) via ventilated capsule, sweat gland activation (SGA), sweat gland output (SGO), and cutaneous vasomotor activity via laser-Doppler flowmetry (CVC) were measured as mean body temperature increased (ΔT_b) during passive heating using a water-perfused suit. Compared with N-SMK, SMK had a smaller ΔT_b at the onset of sweating (0.52 ± 0.19 vs. 0.35 ± 0.14°C, respectively; P = 0.03) and cutaneous vasodilation (0.61 ± 0.21 vs. 0.31 ± 0.12°C, respectively; P < 0.01). Increases in LSR and CVC per °C ΔT_b (i.e., sensitivity) were similar in N-SMK and SMK (LSR: 0.63 ± 0.21 vs. 0.60 ± 0.40 Δmg/cm2/min/°C ΔT_b, respectively, P = 0.81; CVC: 82.5 ± 46.2 vs. 58.9 ± 23.3 Δ%max/°C ΔT_b, respectively; P = 0.19). However, the plateau in LSR during whole body heating was higher in N-SMK vs. SMK (1.00 ± 0.13 vs. 0.79 ± 0.26 mg·cm~(-2)·min~(-1); P - 0.03), which was likely a result of higher SGO (8.94 ± 3.99 vs. 5.94 ± 3.49 mug·gland~(-1)·min~(-1), respectively; P = 0.08) and not number of SGA (104 ± 7 vs. 121 ± 9 glands/cm~2, respectively; P = 0.58). During whole body passive heat stress, smokers had an earlier onset for forearm sweating and cutaneous vasodilation, but a lower local sweat rate that was likely due to lower sweat output per gland. These data provide insight into local (i.e., forearm) thermoregulatory responses of young smokers during uncompensatory whole body passive heat stress.