Have you activated your central heating system yet? According to British Gas, the average British family does not generally do so until October 24. This year, however, due to rising energy costs, it may be delayed.
My wife Clare and I have not yet felt the need to use the heating system. Despite government assistance, millions of individuals will struggle to keep their houses warm throughout the upcoming winter.
To lessen the possibility of blackouts and save money on energy expenditures, people are asked to lower their thermostats.
The Energy Saving Trust, an organization dedicated to energy conservation, estimates that lowering your thermostat from 20 to 19 degrees Celsius will reduce your energy bill by approximately 10 percent.
If you are lucky enough to be able to manage how well your home is heated, you may be interested to learn that lowering the thermostat may also have health benefits.
However, your age and health mostly determine how low you can go.
Young children have more skin surface relative to their body weight than adults, so they lose body heat more quickly. Those over the age of 70 struggle in the cold because not only do they lose body heat more quickly, but they are frequently unaware of how cold they are, which can lead to hypothermia.
According to Age UK, the ideal temperature for senior living areas is 21 degrees Celsius or higher, while bedrooms should not fall below 18 degrees Celsius. As long as you are physically fit and active, you should be able to adjust to and handle colder temperatures.
And it may do us good. In a 2014 study, researchers from Australia’s Garvan Institute of Medical Research requested a small group of healthy males to live in a temperature-controlled building for four months while conducting examinations.
The rooms were kept at 24 degrees Celsius for the first month, a ‘thermo-neutral’ temperature where the body does not have to struggle to produce or lose heat.
The temperature was then reduced to 19°C for one month, raised to 24°C in the third month, and increased to 27°C in the final month.
Changes in the volunteers’ amounts of ‘brown’ fat were among the most startling results.
In contrast to normal fat, which you might desire to have less of, brown fat (which is often seen in small amounts around the shoulders and neck) is something to appreciate.
This is because the cell is packed with mitochondria, which function as mini-power plants by converting food into energy.
To keep them warm, infants have a large amount of brown fat, but adults have considerably lesser quantities. The good news is that increasing your amounts of brown fat causes you to burn more calories, and it should also increase your insulin sensitivity, reducing the amount of insulin your body must create after a meal to restore normal blood sugar levels. This should result in less appetite and a decreased risk of obesity and type 2 diabetes.
In this study, when the temperature of the building was lowered to 19 degrees Celsius, the men’s brown fat grew by an average of 42%, while their resting metabolic rate (the amount of energy expended when the body is at rest) increased by 10%. Their insulin sensitivity also increased dramatically.
But as the temperature in the room reached 24 degrees Celsius, their brown fat melted away, and by 27 degrees Celsius, the participants’ brown fat volume had dropped below what it was at the beginning of the experiment, along with all the metabolic benefits.
One of the study’s authors, endocrinologist Dr. Paul Lee, noted that since the 1990s, the average temperature in our homes has risen from 19 to 22 degrees Celsius, which he stated: “is adequate to suppress brown fat.”
In addition to an unhealthy diet and lack of physical activity, he continued, “it is tempting to infer that the modest variation in temperature exposure may be a component in the increase in obesity.”
Most of us could handle 19 degrees Celsius, but what about going lower?
In a separate study, researchers from the Maastricht University Medical Centre in the Netherlands demonstrated that the vast majority of individuals quickly adjust to cooler temperatures.
Ten days after spending six hours each day at 15 degrees Celsius, subjects’ brown fat levels increased and they reported feeling more comfortable and shivering less.
However, there is a concern about dampness. I’ve bought some indoor room thermometers (they cost less than $6 online) that tell me the temperature and humidity in each area of our home. Humidity impacts how cold you feel.
Winter makes our rooms stuffier and more humid because we close doors and windows to conserve heat, so storing moisture within.
The relative humidity’ (i.e., the amount of water vapor in the air) in space should ideally be between 40 and 60 percent; if it rises any higher, your garments will become damp and less effective at maintaining your body heat.
If your rooms are humid, you can get a dehumidifier (which uses much less energy than heaters). Additionally, plants like peace lilies and spider plants absorb excess moisture and eliminate contaminants.
The temperature and humidity in my office are currently just around 17 degrees Celsius and 57 percent, respectively. The belief that you lose the most heat through your head is a myth, thus I’m not wearing a hat (though that may change as the weather gets colder).
Surprisingly, there is no legislative minimum working temperature, however an “Approved Code of Practice” indicates it should “usually be at least 16 degrees Celsius.”
Women appear to be more sensitive to cold, in part because they have less muscle mass to generate heat and in part, because estrogen dilates the blood vessels on the skin’s surface, allowing more body heat to leave. When it comes time to turn on the heat, I believe Clare will crack first. We will observe.
The new diet that will revolutionize diabetes treatment
This week, the NHS announced that thousands of people with type 2 diabetes will participate in a quick weight loss program (850 calories per day, primarily from soups and smoothies).
This is excellent news since, despite their negative reputation, quick weight-loss strategies have been demonstrated to be considerably more effective than regular diets at helping people lose weight and keep it off.
They help persons with type 2 diabetes reduce their blood sugar levels without medication.
Roy Taylor, a professor of medicine and metabolism at Newcastle University, is one of the scientists pioneering this approach to type 2 diabetes. When I first met him in 2014, he explained that type 2 diabetes is caused by a buildup of fat in the liver and pancreas, impairing the body’s capacity to regulate blood sugar levels.
The remedy, according to him, is to shed approximately 10% of your body mass, preferably with a quick weight loss regimen. And despite considerable skepticism, an early trial of his strategy revealed that individuals with type 2 diabetes who adhered to an 850-calorie-per-day diet dropped an average of 10 kilograms over a period of 12 weeks, with over half reversing their diabetes. Other, larger investigations have now replicated these findings.
A few days ago, when I met with Roy, he was pleased that the NHS is now on board, but he is concerned that the program’s funding is “not yet safe.” I have my fingers crossed.
