Cardiovascular responses to short-term cold and heat exposure in people with type 2 diabetes and hypertension" (DiabColdHeat)
The climate in the Arctic is changing, and this will mean both warming and more extreme weather conditions and changing weather. A large part of the working population in the Arctic is exposed to varying temperatures, mostly through outdoor work, but also through work in special conditions, such as in cold storage or at metal smelting plants. Type 2 diabetes is a common condition in the population and also often occurs together with high blood pressure (hypertension). These people may have a higher risk of health problems in both high and low ambient temperatures, compared to those without a disease. The reasons may be that their heart, blood vessels, nervous system or metabolism may react differently than in healthy people.
Our PhD student Mojdeh Rafieian is analyzing data in this project. The goal is to investigate how type 2 diabetes and hypertension affect cardiovascular responses when the body is briefly exposed to both cold and heat exposure. The second goal is to investigate the relationship between ambient temperature and hospitalizations for cardiovascular events (heart attack or stroke) among people with type 2 diabetes and hypertension. Mojdeh plans to use data from the "DiabColdHeat study," a laboratory study, as well as data from the CONOR study, a compilation of several Norwegian population studies with data from, among others, the Tromsø study and the HUNT study. The first article was published in Frontiers in Physiology and can be read here.
Mojdeh's supervisors are Tiina Ikäheimo, Anje Höper and Erlend Farbu at the Department of Community Medicine (ISM) at UiT The Arctic University of Norway, and there is also collaboration with the University of Oulu and the Finnish Institute of Occupational Health in Oulu, where data for the DiabColdHeat study has been collected.