Acquiring and Targeting Heat Exposures Necessary for Action

Summary

The purpose of this research study is to better understand ways that women and men differ physiologically, cognitively, physically, and cellularly to better prescribe helpful interventions that will prevent injury and risk of conditions like exertional heat illnesses or heatstroke. The main questions this project aims to answer are:

1. What is the relative stress contributing to performance differences between women and men during intense exercise in extremely hot and humid environments in response to exertional heat stress?
2. What is the relative contribution of responses in adipose tissue, cardiovascular tissue, gut microbiota, and musculoskeletal tissue on heat tolerance in women (vs. men) to exertional heat stress?
3. What is the impact of adding an antioxidant juice consumption regime and will it assist in enhancing performance during an acute bout of exercise-heat stress before and after heat acclimation?

Subjects enrolled and approved for participation will perform:

1. a heat acclimation protocol which includes the completion of 5 days of prescribed exercise-heat exposure
2. two separate acute exercise-heat exposures for the assessment of thermotolerance and the investigation of potential enhancements in thermoregulatory performance that may occur after the completion of a 5-day heat acclimation protocol
3. a subset of subjects enrolled and approved for participation who opt in to antioxidant berry supplement consumption will either consume the active or placebo product throughout their participation.

Conditions

• Heat Intolerance
• Heat Stress
• Fatigue; Heat

Interventions

DIETARY_SUPPLEMENT

Antioxidant Berry Supplementation

Participants who opt-in will be instructed to consume 300mL of the bioactive (antioxidant berry) supplement every morning and afternoon during days of participation.

OTHER

Acute and Chronic Exercise-Heat Stress

All participants (male and female) will be exposed to repeated bouts of exercise-heat stress.

DIETARY_SUPPLEMENT

Placebo (non-juice) Supplementation

Participants who opt-in will be instructed to consume 300mL of the placebo (non-juice) supplement every morning and afternoon during days of participation.

Sponsors & Collaborators

• United States Department of Defense

  collaborator FED

• University of Connecticut

  lead OTHER

Principal Investigators

• Douglas J Casa, PhD · Korey Stringer Institute - UConn

Study Design

Allocation

RANDOMIZED

Purpose

BASIC_SCIENCE

Masking

DOUBLE

Model

PARALLEL

Eligibility

Min Age

18 Years

Max Age

50 Years

Sex

ALL

Healthy Volunteers

Yes

Timeline & Regulatory

Start

2021-09-16

Primary Completion

2024-04-17

Completion

2024-04-17

Countries

• United States

Study Locations