The Japanese have a name for the syndrome of feeling cold a lot – hi-e-sho. But nobody really knows why it happens, though the US Army has been trying to figure it out for years, said exercise physiologist John Castellani of the US Army Research Institute of Environmental Medicine in Natick.
In general, women seem to feel cold more than men, he noted, and older people often feel colder than young ones in the same environment. Some people with less body fat also feel cold a lot, but then again, so do some obese people. In some people, a slightly underactive thyroid gland may be the culprit, said Lisa Leon, also a research physiologist at the Natick army lab.
“There is no simple physiological indicator” of who will feel cold and who won’t, said Matthew Kluger, a fever expert and vice president for research at the Medical College of Georgia.
Researchers have tried to predict who will do well in what kind of environment – hot or cold – and have found no clear markers, such as the rate of sweating or the ability of the blood vessels to constrict. The best predictor, he said, turns out to be just asking people whether they do better in hot environments, or cold.
What you can count on, Kluger said, is that, because of considerable individual variation, in any relationship, one person will tend to feel colder than the other, triggering those familiar thermostat wars.