Short-term Warm Water Immersion as a Heat Acclimation Strategy to Enhance Heat Dissipation in Older Adults: An Exploratory Study

Aging is associated with impairments in heat loss responses of skin blood flow and sweating leading to reductions in whole-body heat loss. Consequently, older adults store more body heat and experience greater elevations in core temperature during heat exposure at rest and during exercise. This maladaptive response occurs in adults as young as 40 years of age. Recently, heat acclimation associated with repeated bouts of exercise in the heat performed over 7 successive days has been shown to enhance whole-body heat loss in older adults, leading to a reduction in body heat storage. However, performing exercise in the heat may not be well tolerated or feasible for many older adults. Passive heat acclimation, such as the use of warm-water immersion may be an effective, alternative method to enhance heat-loss capacity in older adults. Thus, the following study aims to assess the effectiveness of a 7-day warm-water immersion (~40°C) protocol in enhancing whole-body heat loss in older adults. Warm-water immersion will consist of a one-hour immersion in warm water with core temperature clamped at 38.5°C. Improvements in whole-body heat loss will be assessed during an incremental exercise protocol performed in dry heat (i.e., 40°C, ~15% relative humidity) prior to and following the 7-day passive heat acclimation protocol. The incremental exercise protocol will consist of three 30 minute exercise bouts performed at increasing fixed rates of metabolic heat production (i.e., 150, 200, and 250 W/m2), each separated by 15-minutes of recovery, with exception final recovery will be 1-hour in duration) performed in a direct calorimeter (a device that provides a precise measurement of the heat dissipated by the human body).