Humans are warm-blooded animals, capable of maintaining body temperature thanks to the balance of heat generation and heat loss. When there is a disorder in body temperature balance, it increases too high, affecting metabolism, disrupting vital activities, and endangering life.

Any condition of increased or decreased body temperature affects the vital functions of organs. Malignant hyperthermia syndrome is an example, a complication encountered during anesthesia, which can be life-threatening if not treated promptly.

When the temperature drops sharply, without the necessary measures to keep warm, people can suffer from mild to severe hypothermia, even death. So what is the limit of human cold tolerance?

Hypothermia treatment for cardiac arrest patients was first introduced in 1950, and has been increasingly proven to play an important role in supporting emergency care and improving mortality and complications in patients with respiratory arrest. This is the opportunity for patients after cardiac arrest to survive and reduce the rate of severe brain sequelae later.

Hypothermia is a fairly common condition that occurs due to a number of causes such as premature infants, cold exposure due to weather, drowning or systemic diseases that inhibit the temperature regulation center due to neurological disease or hypothyroidism. When hypothermia is not treated, it can easily lead to life-threatening disorders because the body cannot generate heat in time for the heart and nervous system.

Cardiovascular hypothermia is a neuroprotective strategy that has shown high efficacy in clinical practice, capable of affecting more than 20 mechanisms behind ischemia and reperfusion to help minimize brain damage after cardiac arrest, reduce cerebral edema, and increase patient survival in emergency cardiovascular resuscitation.