Passive heat induces beneficial perfusion profiles, provides substantive cardiovascular strain and reduces blood pressure, thereby holding potential for healthy and cardiovascular disease populations. The aim of this study was to assess acute responses to passive heat via lower-limb hot-water immersion in patients with peripheral arterial disease (PAD) and healthy, elderly controls. Eleven patients with PAD (age 71±6 y, 7 male) and ten Controls (age 72±7 y, 8 male) underwent hot-water immersion (30 min waist-level immersion in 42.1±0.6°C water). Before, during and following immersion, brachial and popliteal artery diameter, blood flow and shear stress were assessed using duplex ultrasound. Lower-limb perfusion was measured also using venous occlusion plethysmography and near-infrared spectroscopy. During immersion, shear rate increased (p<0.0001) comparably between groups in the popliteal artery (Controls: +183±26%; PAD: +258±54%) and brachial artery (Controls: +117±24%; PAD: +107±32%). Lower-limb blood flow increased significantly in both groups, as measured from duplex ultrasound (>200%), plethysmography (>100%) and spectroscopy, while central and peripheral pulse wave velocity decreased in both groups. Mean arterial blood pressure was reduced by 22±9 mmHg (main effect p<0.0001, interaction p=0.60) during immersion, and remained 7±7 mmHg lower 3 h afterward. In PAD, popliteal shear profiles and claudication both compared favourably with those measured immediately following symptom-limited walking. A 30-min hot-water immersion is a practical means of delivering heat therapy to PAD patients and healthy, elderly individuals to induce appreciable systemic (chronotropic and blood pressure lowering) and hemodynamic (upper and lower-limb perfusion and shear rate increases) responses.
This research output has an Altmetric Attention Score of 4. This is our high-level measure of the quality and quantity of online attention that it has received. This Attention Score, as well as the ranking and number of research outputs shown below, was calculated when the research output was last mentioned on 26 November 2019.
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#11,410,365
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Outputs from American Journal of Physiology: Regulatory, Integrative & Comparative Physiology
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Altmetric has tracked 34,410,315 research outputs across all sources so far. This one has received more attention than most of these and is in the 66th percentile.
So far Altmetric has tracked 4,369 research outputs from this source. They typically receive more attention than average, with a mean Attention Score of 9.3. This one has gotten more attention than average, scoring higher than 66% of its peers.
Older research outputs will score higher simply because they've had more time to accumulate mentions. To account for age we can compare this Altmetric Attention Score to the 460,289 tracked outputs that were published within six weeks on either side of this one in any source. This one has gotten more attention than average, scoring higher than 67% of its contemporaries.
We're also able to compare this research output to 43 others from the same source and published within six weeks on either side of this one. This one has done well, scoring higher than 76% of its contemporaries.
