Indoor temperature and blood pressure
muscle mass
HBP, HIGH BLOOD PRESSURE, VASODILATATION, HEAT, COLD, ENDOTHELIAL DYSFUNCTION
As described above, we established that many Japanese people live in cold homes. In view of the concern that low indoor temperatures causes high blood pressure, we analyzed the association between HBP and indoor winter temperature using a multilevel model [We found a nonlinear cubic relationship between morning SBP and indoor temperature, illustrated in Fig. Relationship between indoor ambient temperature and morning systolic blood pressure from ref. [We also found that SBP in older residents as well as women was particularly susceptible to indoor temperature change. Possible causes here are vascular endothelial dysfunction and diminished physiological adaptability (e.g., vasodilatation) to indoor temperature variations in older residents. Additionally, older residents and women have decreased muscle mass compared with younger residents and men, which translates to reduced metabolic heat production and increased vulnerability to cold. For these reasons, recommendations concerning optimum home temperature should be tailored according to population group, a topic identified as requiring future research in the WHO Housing and health guidelines.Recently, Tai et al. [