WHY WOMEN REACT MORE QUICKLY TO COLD THAN MEN DO

One of my customers kindly sent to me two emails with attachments that deal with cold weather clothing used in Norway. The first deals with oil field or ocean workers and the second with the Norwegian military. I will be doing an article on both later, but I did read in the “instruction in winter service personal clothing” that was sent two very interesting comments.

The first is erroneous, “heat loss from the body is in the head and neck region”, this is true, but what is erroneous is the percentage of heat loss. I quote; “up to one half of heat loss from the body is from the uncovered head and neck region”.

Having experienced being out for 3 days without a head cover, I lost my hood while I was lost, in temperatures of -20 degrees F I still stayed warm because I was wearing as it turned out adequate insulated clothing for the situation I was in. I was wearing the Fossil Ridge parka with the L-12 insulation, the weight used in the Antarctic parka. So even though my head was not covered I stayed warm over all. While trudging through waist high snow, it was powdery, I did start to sweat and so I opened my neckline to vent and after about 4 or 5 minutes I closed it since I was comfortable again.

Had I been losing as much as 50 percent of the heat I was generating I would have been consuming my body fat very quickly since I had no food and ultimately would have died I suspect.

I will have more to say about this in the next article.

WOMEN FREEZING

With all of the research that I have done on human physiology the one subject that was incomplete is why women get cold faster than men. I did learn that muscle mass is what produces heat in all warm blooded animals and with respect to humans women have less muscle mass than men; so they do not produce as much heat.

In the personal clothing manual there is the best explanation and only one I have ever read as to why. I quote;” Women tend to freeze more than men in their extremities as they possess a greater amount of subcutaneous fat. Fatty tissue contains a substantially smaller amount of capillaries than muscles, which means that there is minimal blood flow in subcutaneous fat”.

I was aware of the fact that women have a thicker layer of fat on their body naturally, but I did not know that fat tissue contains a much smaller number of capillaries. So without the warm blood flow throughout the fatty tissue less heat is delivered. Also consider the fact that when fingers and toes start to cool the body automatically reduces or eliminated blood flow to the digits and at the same time blood flow through the fatty tissue is slowed or eliminated as well because the body is directing all blood flow to the vital organs.

It would not surprise me to learn that men who are fat also get colder than men who are not fat. Why would the capillaries be greater in men who have lots of fat on their body than women? Seems to me what is good for the gander is good for the goose; not that it is good.

I read the following article on SBG’s on line magazine today.

CUTTING-EDGE INNOVATION … W.L.GORE 3D FIT SOCK TECHNOLOGY

Gore launched the 3D Fit Sock at Friedrichshafen last week — waterproof, breathable material that molds to the shape of the foot. There are 3 companies that are showing a shoe or maybe more than one shoe style; Adidas, Under Amour and Solomon.

The article is quite long giving the history of how this product came about, however I chose not to read much of it as it is very difficult for me to wade hip deep in the B/S that gore puts out.

They are not satisfied to have every customer that buys gore-tex lined boots which keep the wearers of these boots feet wet all day but now they have a product that will allow the wearer of the boots to wear a bootie, from the pictures these are booties not socks; that will now keep their feet wet in their homes or wherever they maybe.

They must be offering to pay people basketball player salaries so they have no conscience when they promote what I believe is the biggest con-job ever perpetrated on the consuming public. Just so I am clear; isn’t that what politicians say; there is no such fabric as a fabric that is WATERPROOF as well as BREATHABLE.

I, in my 54 years in the textile industry have never seen such a fabric and I have asked for any one company that sells such a fabric to show it to me. As of this writing not one company has stepped forward to come to Grand Junction, Colorado to show it to me.

The 3 companies mentioned apparently are hard up to be able to sell anything that may generate profits. But they are not alone when it comes to the footwear industry, they all believe they need gore to sell their boots, rocky even sells a gore-tex sock.

I am going to start selling foot medications. Cutting edge technology if you want to get your toes cut off.