Talk:Cold shock response

Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment
This article was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment, between 11 February 2021 and 21 May 2021. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): Saraprier.

Above undated message substituted from Template:Dashboard.wikiedu.org assignment by PrimeBOT (talk) 19:17, 17 January 2022 (UTC)

Untitled

 * Respone to suggestion to merge into main Shock page: Cold shock response is a somewhat new concept in medicine. Moreover, shock is commonly understood to result from injury, not mere cold. The article on shock (in medicine) says that physical shock is not related to emotional shock. I think that is wrong, but .... Anyway, it might be okay to list Cold shock response in the types subsubsection. But don't remove this article; cold shock response is a very distinct concept. Furthermore, the whole main shock article woefully lacking in contextual explanations (for the layperson). Anthony717 (talk) 22:38, 18 May 2008 (UTC)

Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment
This article was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment, between 21 October 2019 and 13 December 2019. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): GrimReeper77.

Above undated message substituted from Template:Dashboard.wikiedu.org assignment by PrimeBOT (talk) 17:59, 16 January 2022 (UTC)

Refusual to accept expert opinion on grounds of "Original reasearch"
"Cold shock response is a somewhat new concept in medicine" - quite, and no useful research has been undertaken. Given this, by definition most if not all useful relevant content will be original research. The most fertile pool of information is the experience of winter swimmers who, unlike academics and other self-styled "experts", have first-hand knowledge of the effects of extreme cold on the body. Many like myself have studied the physiological changes that take place during the lengthy training process that is necessary to be able to withstand lengthy immersion in very cold water.

Regarding winter swimmers, two of the claims made by previous editors are ludicrous:

"ability to raise metabolism (and, in some cases, increase blood temperature slightly above normal levels)" How precisely? Regarding the "rise in blood temperature", this is based on the claims of one swimmer: Lewis Pugh. While Mr. Pugh is famous for his cold water swimming he is not the only winter swimmer. What happens in my case is that upon entering cold water my core temperature falls very quickly by one degree celsius, no more. This is in fact the standard response to immersion in cold water, no doubt to slightly reduce the thermal gradient between core and ambient.

It is a well known fact that while humans lose most of their infant-hood brown adipose tissue (brown fat), repeated exposure to extreme cold encourages the regeneration of brown fat. The sole function of brown fat is to metabolise white fat to generate heat. I contend that in winter swimmers brown fat metabolism is responsible for thermogenesis.

"Nevertheless, the human organism is limited by its thermal design: in freezing water, the struggle to maintain blood temperature (by swimming or conditioned metabolic response) produces great fatigue after 30 minutes or less" This statement is ill-informed nonsense. I know of many cold water swimmers who can swim for 60 minutes or longer in water between 10 and 15C without any impairment of ability. During the 2010 Boxing day Dip in Liverpool's Salthouse Dock I was responsible for photographing the event and to do so was floating in a large swim ring, dressed only in swimming briefs (Speedos) in water at 4C, for nearly 25 minutes. After relinquishing my ring I went back in for a proper swim - after unprotected immersion of 25mins in extremely cold water. My personal best was 40mins immersion in a river at 6C, and I can assure whoever was responsible for the above claim that despite such lengthy immersion I retained my swimming ability.

It is of course perfectly likely that if a winter swimmer's increased thermogenesis is augmented by the ability to significantly reduce heat loss then his endurance may be indefinitely extended.

Personally I'm not going to further edit the page under discussion. I can put the same effort into writing articles for the market, for which I will be paid. As for original research, all the content from sources that have to be cited for verification was not handed down on stone tablets from the Mount - all such material has at some time resulted from original research. Ironically I could edit the subject article citing my published work, and it would then be acceptable.

Absolutely bloody ridiculous.

Wildswimmer Pete (talk) 17:26, 22 May 2011 (UTC)


 * It's not ridiculous - Wikipedia is not the vehicle for publishing original research, it is an encyclopedia. Original research should be published elsewhere, ideally in quality peer-reviewed journals, which can then be referenced here. Otherwise how is claimed 'expertise' to be judged? The other editor might claim to be an 'expert' too. 194.75.171.106 (talk) 09:56, 24 August 2015 (UTC)
 * Regarding the statement ""Cold shock response is a somewhat new concept in medicine" - quite, and no useful research has been undertaken": If, by "somewhat new", you mean within the past 40 - 50 years, fine, but that's not how I interpret the phrase.  There is no shortage of human subject research on cold shock.  To the contrary, it is a well-defined phenomenon.  See the National Center for Cold Water Safety website for additional information. www.coldwatersafety.org.  Furthermore, an excellent review article on the subject (complete with 173 references) can be read here: https://apps.dtic.mil/sti/pdfs/ADA519342.pdf.
 * Regarding the statement "The most fertile pool of information is the experience of winter swimmers who, unlike academics and other self-styled "experts", have first-hand knowledge of the effects of extreme cold on the body": This is incorrect with respect to cold shock.  In fact, cold water swimmers are an excellent source for acclimatization, but not cold shock, because acclimatization reduces or eliminates cold shock.
 * Regarding the statement "Nevertheless, the human organism is limited by its thermal design: in freezing water, the struggle to maintain blood temperature (by swimming or conditioned metabolic response) produces great fatigue after 30 minutes or less" This statement is ill-informed nonsense. I know of many cold water swimmers who can swim for 60 minutes or longer in water between 10 and 15C without any impairment of ability.":
 * While the original statement is too generalized to be useful and appears to confuse incapacitation with hypothermia, the response is also flawed because it compares and/or equates "freezing water" with much warmer water. There is a large temperature difference between "freezing water" 28F -32F (2.2C - 0C) and 50F - 60F (10C - 15C).  When talking about "impairment" in this context, the issue is physical incapacitation, which occurs more rapidly in colder water temperatures.
 * Regarding the statement: "It is of course perfectly likely that if a winter swimmer's increased thermogenesis is augmented by the ability to significantly reduce heat loss then his endurance may be indefinitely extended.": No human has the ability to indefinitely extend either physical performance or survival in cold water.  Even subjects with a lot of body fat cannot indefinitely maintain normothermia in cold water.
 * Moulton Avery, National Center for Cold Water Safety 11-25-22 WoofnaWoof (talk) 18:33, 25 November 2022 (UTC)

Reader feedback: Cellular level cold shock. (...
72.33.46.195 posted this comment on 25 February 2013 (view all feedback).

"Cellular level cold shock. (cold shock response in microorganisms)"

Any thoughts?

• • • Peter (Southwood) (talk): 16:49, 8 November 2013 (UTC)

Myth of sudden hypothermia

 * Peter, can you re-phrase the heading "Myth of sudden hypothermia" to something more neutral? It makes it seem that the whole article is about how hypothermia isn't dangerous. With all due respect, it seems a little WP:SOAP. :Kortoso (talk) 17:50, 23 January 2017 (UTC)
 * I agree on the tone issue, so I removed the header as unnecessary. That should do it. I don't think anyone was trying to give the impression that hypothermia isn't dangerous, as it quite obviously is, but it is also clear that the misconception about how fast it kills also exists, and may be quite common. I also rearranged a sentence to clarify who it referred to, and extended the range of content covered by some of the references. Does this help? I am still looking for references for a few of the claims. Cheers, &bull; &bull; &bull; Peter (Southwood) (talk): 19:14, 23 January 2017 (UTC)
 * , Are there any remaining statements which you suspect are original research? If so please tag them directly. Cheers,&bull; &bull; &bull; Peter (Southwood) (talk): 19:28, 23 January 2017 (UTC)
 * Seems okay now (unless someone else sees a problem), thank you for quick response. I removed the tag. Kortoso (talk) 20:23, 23 January 2017 (UTC)
 * BTW, check out this cite in [hypothermia]: Kortoso (talk) 20:31, 23 January 2017 (UTC)
 * I did. It was badly formatted so I fixed that. Whether it is a reliable source is another matter, but it does not make any exceptional claims, so I left it there. Cheers, &bull; &bull; &bull; Peter (Southwood) (talk): 06:19, 24 January 2017 (UTC)

I’ve never marked an article for multiple issues before,
But this one needs some love in more ways than one. I’m not sure exactly how to use the template, or templates in general on wiki. UsersLikeYou (talk) 05:00, 20 February 2022 (UTC)

Separate mammalian cold shock response from bacterial
It's pretty clear that these are entirely unrelated phenomena that have been given the same name; I move that these be split into separate articles. The bacterial material could perhaps be merged with Cold-shock domain. Mikalra (talk) 20:22, 18 May 2024 (UTC)