Has anyone done research looking at blood based biomarkers during heat stress in humans?
Hi, I agree with Karen on IL6. it is an inflammatory cytokine. I am currently involved in heat stress research, so I'll tell you what little i know.
First, you can look at heat shock proteins, especially hsp60 and hsp90, the reason i say this is because many studies are investigating it, which may mean it's more economical to analyse. Also, it would be better for a study comparison point of view. Having said that, it may still be rather costly.
You could also look at CRP (c reactive protein) or tumor necrosis factor(TNF-alpha). These two are also pretty commonly used in thermal stress relayed research. even a simple one like creatine kinase could be used. I guess it all comes down to what you are looking at specifically. Association? Correlation? Causation?
Anyway, I do have a couple of papers on inflammatory markers. let me know if you'd like me to email them to you, or drop them off here. Cheers, and i hope i was able to help.
The fundamental question is, what do you want to know. We could reel of all sorts of inflammatory, immunological, stress response or haematological markers, but these are irrelevant without the understanding of what it is you want to know about thermoregulation.
If it is to look at heat tolerance and acclimation then you would need to consider HSPs (72 & 90 particularly), however these aren't cheap to measure. I've attached some relevant papers from work conducted here.
Conference Paper Hsp72 mRNA transcription, and Sweat Adaptations are greater ...
Article Hsp72 and Hsp90α mRNA transcription is characterised by larg...
I was just interested in whether researchers were contemplating in vivo analysis when looking at thermoregulation in order to provide a more holistic explanation of what is happening physiologically. The papers that you have provided are useful so thank you!
I was more interested in the sports performance aspect and whether the use of blood based markers could be used to explain changes in performance during heat stress. The functional markers e.g. core/skin temp, heart rate, blood flow only give so much information.
@Earric
Yes if you could post some papers onto this thread, that would be great!
Hi,
you should have a look to that nice review.
Best regards
Laurent
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/43495425_The_role_of_immune_disturbances_in_the_pathology_of_heat_stroke_The_dual_pathway_model_of_heat_stroke
Article The role of immune disturbances in the pathology of heat str...
HSP 60, 70 etc are useful for understanding heat shock response but it is difficult to ascertain their responses accurately in humans. The actions of HSPs take place in the cells of various organs which cannot be harvested for investigation in humans. Measuring HSPs centrally do not give you the same indication as the responses in the cells. That's why most HSP related experiments are done in animals.
Inflammatory markers such as cytokines and CRP are elevated in heat stroke but the increase in concentrations of these markers also occur in responsept to exercise alone and sub-lethal heat stress. Therefore, in the context of heathe stroke, these cytokines need to be interpreted together with elevated concentrations of endotoxin or lipopolysaccharides (LPS) and liver enzymes for tissue damage such as CK, ALT and AST. The reference given above by Lauren Grelot will provide further explanations for what I wrote here as I am the author of that review.
Best wishes
If you had some more detail on your experiment and what you're interested in then I'd also be happy to advise or point you in the right direction. [email protected]