Home-Based Heat Therapy and Vascular Function of Adults Living with Type 2 Diabetes: Preliminary Analyses of a Randomized Controlled Trial
Bibliographic record
Abstract
Background: Several studies indicate that various heat exposure interventions improve peripheral endothelial function and microvascular reactivity, as well as reduce central arterial stiffness and blood pressure in various populations. Nonetheless, few studies have considered the potential therapeutic effects of heat exposure for people living with type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM), who are at high cardiovascular risk. In addition, all heat therapy interventions investigated to date have been laboratory-based, which may limit long-term adherence. HYPOTHESES: This study aims is to determine the effects of a 12-week home-based heat therapy intervention on markers of vascular function in adults living with T2DM. The primary hypothesis is that heat therapy improves peripheral endothelial function relative to a sham intervention. Secondary hypotheses include improved microvascular reactivity, central arterial stiffness, and 24h blood pressure. METHODS: Thirteen adults (66 ± 10 years, 28.9 ± 6.0 kg/m2, 9 men/ 4 women) living with TD2M were randomized to 12 weeks of home-based heat therapy (n=7, lower leg immersion in 42°C water) or a thermoneutral sham intervention (n=6, lower leg immersion in 36°C water). Peripheral endothelial function (brachial artery flow-mediated dilation, FMD), microvascular reactivity (post-occlusive reactive hyperemia), arterial stiffness (carotid-femoral pulse wave velocity), and 24h blood pressure (ambulatory blood pressure monitoring), were measured before and after the intervention. RESULTS: Brachial artery FMD changed by 1.72% [95%CI, 0.06; 3.37] in response to heat therapy compared to 0.41% [-1.38; +2.20] in response to the sham intervention. Peak and total reactive hyperemia changed by 0.79 mL/min/mmHg [-0.27; 1.86] and by 1.77 mL/mmHg [0.73; 2.81], respectively, in response to heat therapy compared with 0.76 mL/min/mmHg [-0.38; 1.91] and 1.68 mL/mmHg [0.56; 2.80] in response to the sham intervention. Arterial stiffness changed by 0.55 m/s [-1.62; 2.71] in response to heat therapy compared with -1.60 m/s [-3.75; 0.57] in response to the sham intervention. The 24h-systolic and diastolic blood pressure changed by 6 mmHg [-1; +12] and 2 mmHg [-3; +7], respectively, in response to heat therapy compared with -2 mmHg [-10; +6] and -3 mmHg [-9; +3] in response to the sham intervention. CONCLUSION: These preliminary results suggest that 12 weeks of home-based lower leg hot water immersion improves brachial artery FMD in adults with T2DM. In contrast, the heat therapy intervention does not appear to improve microvascular reactivity, central arterial stiffness, or 24h blood pressure. Cardiometabolic Health Diabetes and Obesity Research Network and Diabète Quebec. This is the full abstract presented at the American Physiology Summit 2024 meeting and is only available in HTML format. There are no additional versions or additional content available for this abstract. Physiology was not involved in the peer review process.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.007 | 0.008 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.004 | 0.004 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.000 | 0.001 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Open science | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Research integrity | 0.002 | 0.002 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.006 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".