The Detection of Heat Stress by Assessing Individual Body Responses to Heat (Heat Strain) in Young and Healthy Non-athlete Participants (HEATSTAR)

ETH Zurich

Status

Completed

Conditions

Heat Stress

Treatments

Other: Elevated relative humidity

Other: Elevated ambient heat

Other: Exertion

Study type

Observational

Funder types

Other

Identifiers

NCT05622188

EKNZ ID: 2022 - 01325

Details and patient eligibility

About

• This study investigates and compares the within and in-between variances of the body responses to different heat stressors in a controlled lab-setting. The participants will be exposed to different heat sources while a variety of physiological heat strain reactions such as heartrate, sweat rate, and core body temperature are recorded using on- and in-body devices. For the participant monitoring during the study, medical grade devices such as a certified ECG and a swallowable sensor-pill to continuously monitor the core body temperature will be applied. A one-for-all wearable device is additionally applied for physiological validation. Further, sweat will be collected to assess (i) the local sweat rate and (ii) the appearance of different heat stress associated molecular markers in this non-invasively collectable biofluid. As a secondary aim, a model will be developed that will enable to predict the different heat stress sources out of the heat strain measurements.

Enrollment

23 patients

Sex

All

Ages

18 to 40 years old

Volunteers

Accepts Healthy Volunteers

Inclusion criteria

Healthy participant, able to give consent
Age 18-40 years
Non-athlete (<4h sport/week)
BMI<30 (non-obese)
German speaking, or fluent in German

Exclusion criteria

Pregnancy (urine pregnancy test), and breastfeeding
Regular medication intake (excluding birth control pill)
Intake of drugs and/or daily alcohol consumption
Fever or symptoms of an acute infection (cough, shortness of breath, sore throat, taste loss)
Active smoking or history of smoking <9 months ago
Mobility impairment
Traveled (<1 month ago) to a warm/hot temperature zone and stayed for >6 days
Any chronic conditions such as: high blood pressure, diabetes mellitus, immuno-deficiencies, sweat disorders such as anhidrosis
Color blindness (STROOP test)
Weight <40 kg (e-Celsius pill)
Diverticulum or obstructions of the gastrointestinal tract (including motility disorders, swallowing disorders) as well as major abdominal surgery (e-Celsius pill)
Need of exposure to strong electromagnetic fields during study participation, above all MRI examinations (e-Celsius pill)