The gender dispute over temperature settings in the office or home may be overblown, a new government study suggests. The study found little difference between the way men and women self-reported the coldness of their surroundings. There was also no big difference between the sexes in the temperatures required for shivering to begin.
The study was carried out by scientists at the US National Institutes of Health who hoped to better understand how the human body regulates its internal body temperature. In particular, they wanted to clarify whether the widespread assumption that women subjectively feel colder than men at the same temperature was true. This perception is supported by numerous anecdotal reports, although few studies have ever attempted to examine it, the researchers said.
The scientists recruited 16 women and 12 men, all considered healthy and slim, to take part in their experiments. The volunteers’ initial metabolic status was first measured, for example their core body temperature. They were then asked to sit in an air-conditioned room while scientists exposed them to periods of different temperatures over a five-hour period. These temperatures ranged from 63 to 88 degrees Fahrenheit, and the volunteers were also given clothing that did not affect their temperature sensitivity. During these temperature fluctuations, the volunteers were again measured for metabolism, asked if they were cold, and monitored for chills.
The scientists found no significant difference between men and women in “self-reported thermal comfort,” or the need to shiver during temperature changes to stay warm. Women appeared to have a “cooler lower critical temperature” than men, meaning their bodies made metabolic changes to stay warm as the temperature dropped more quickly than men. These changes also led to women, on average, having a higher core body temperature as the room got colder. However, the authors concluded that even these differences appear to be due to the fact that women tend to have smaller bodies and higher body fat percentages than men.
In other words, there are subtle differences in the way people’s bodies regulate themselves as the outside temperature changes. But these differences appear to be largely influenced by a person’s body size and composition, the researchers argue, rather than their gender.
The results are based on a small sample size, so further research examining more diverse groups of people will likely be needed to truly clarify this debate. But for now, perhaps you can console yourself with the possibility that people’s inner comfort level does not largely depend on whether they are a man or a woman.
“In summary, the main causes of individual differences in human thermoregulation are physical characteristics, including body size and composition, which may be partly determined by gender,” the authors wrote in their paper. published Late last month in PNAS magazine.