Alternate local skin cooling and heating ameliorates impaired forearm skin vasodilation function mediated by prolonged sitting

Sedentary behavior occupies a substantial portion of our daily lives. However, prolonged sitting adversely impacts health, primarily by impairing vascular function -- a key contributor to cardiovascular disease. Although studies have demonstrated that prolonged sitting impairs vascular function in the lower limbs, evidence regarding whether similar vascular maladaptation occurs in non-lower limb regions, such as the upper arm, remains limited. Thus, researchers examined whether prolonged sitting impaired forearm cutaneous vascular function and whether this impairment was mitigated by alternating local skin cooling and heating.

In this study, 11 healthy young adults sat for 75 min during which the skin temperature at four forearm skin sites was alternately modulated. The researchers found that prolonged sitting impaired forearm cutaneous vasodilation function. However, this effect was alleviated by alternating local skin cooling and heating. Although prolonged sitting did not influence forearm cutaneous vasoconstriction function, alternating local skin cooling and heating improved it.

These results indicate that alternating local skin cooling and heating during prolonged sitting may mitigate the decline in cutaneous vascular function. The findings are anticipated to contribute to developing novel strategies for preventing vascular function deterioration, including interventions such as ambient temperature modulation.

This study was funded by Fujitsu General Co., Ltd.