Stanford University biologists H. Craig Heller and Dennis Grahn have created a glove which quickly cools down body temperature and speeds up the recovery time of muscle fatigue. Using the glove, the test subject went from “doing 180 pull-ups total to over 620” in six weeks, “without any evidence of the body being damaged by overwork – hence the ‘better than steroids’ claim.”
The glove works by creating a light vacuum (pressure equivalent to sucking a straw) to draw heat to the skin’s surface while cold water circulates around the hand, cooling the blood which in turn lowers the body temperature.
The idea came to Heller and Grahn from studying black bears to see how they reduce body temperature without shedding all their fur. The answer lies in their hair-free paw pads and noses, very small areas of the body with the capability to release large amounts of heat. Likewise, the palms of our hands and soles of our feet are also hairless…
Adjacent thought: Since moving to tropical Asia, I’ve instinctively been treating myself to hot and cold foot baths as a quick way to regulate body temperature in warm up in winter and cool down in summer. There’s the science to back this up.