Temperature and the Effect on Blood Pressure

Lexi SP, Grant Fering, Taylor Boothe, and Morgan Boothe

Abstract:
Objective: The objective of this study was to test how the surrounding climate effects
your blood pressure and to prove homeostasis in blood pressure.

Design: Four teenage high schoolers were put into a group to conduct a lab to study
homeostasis.

Subjects: We tested our procedure using two, 15 year old, boys

Analysis: The closer the water is to room temperature the closer the blood pressure is to
normal.

Variables Measured: Blood pressure before and after submerging their hands in various
temperatures of water.

Results: We found that if the water was colder, it increased the subjects blood
pressure. Also, we noticed that it took our subjects about 3 to 5 minutes for their blood
pressure to return to normal.

Introduction
Blood pressure affects the heart and the kidneys. Depending on the cause,
different hormones are in effect, but some of them are aldosterone, epinephrine
(adrenaline), and renin. Blood pressure can be increased by a number of things whether
it be genetics, stress, age, or eating habits. However, some people do not know that
activities you do before you get your blood pressure taken can affect the results. For
example, caffeine intake, medications, physical activity, and what were observing,
temperature. Over time, high blood pressure can affect your brain, kidneys, and
eyesight in a negative way. They can deteriorate because the high amount of pressure
can harm your arteries, which could slow blood flow. A slow blood flow limits the amount
of blood tissues and organs get, sometimes damaging the brain, kidney, and eye.
We are performing a lab to see how different temperatures affect your blood
pressure. We hypothesized that the warmer the water temperature, then the higher
your blood pressure.

Method
Materials
1. Blood pressure cuff
2. Bowl
3. Hotplate
4. Thermometer
5. Ice cube
6. Bowls of 30, 50, 70, 90, 110
7. Salt

Procedure
1. Take your resting blood pressure as a control for each test.
2. Prepare 5 bowls that each have 4 cups of water, or enough to fully submerge your hand
in the water.
3. Put ice a bowl until the bowl of water gets to 30 (add salt if the water isn't reaching that
temperature with ice alone)
4. Place your hand in 30 water. for 2 minutes, then take out of the water.
5. Take blood pressure and record it.
6. Repeat for 50, 70, 90, 110 water.
7. Graph the change overtime.
Results

Resting SYS SYS Resting DIA DIA

30 118 127 74 82

50 115 105 70 74

70 115 117 70 71

90 118 116 74 78

110 115 105 70 72

SYS=systolic, this is the top number when you look at blood pressure. It
represents the amount of pressure in your arteries during the contraction of your heart
muscle.
DIA= diastolic bottom number of the blood pressure reading. It shows the amount
of pressure in the arteries in between the hearts beats. This is when the heart fills with
blood to get oxygen.
Observations
We observed that it was a challenge to work with the blood pressure cuff since
none of used had used one before. We also noticed that it was more uncomfortable to
keep your hand in the colder water, and the warmer water was comfortable.

Discussion
Our data shows the resting systolic and diastolic versus the systolic and diastolic
of our subjects after putting their hands in different temperatures of water for 2 minutes
at a time. The data shows that the closer the water was to room temperature the closer
the blood pressure was to normal. You can see that with the 30 water, the resulting
blood pressure was very different than the original because it was the farthest from
room temperature.
One thing that went very well in this experiment was the choosing of the water
temperatures. We were able to get a variety of different temperatures without harming
our subjects.
One error that happened in our lab was not fully understanding how to use the
blood pressure machine. Since we did not know how to correctly use it, the first few
blood pressure readings were completely inaccurate. Another error we had was not
running the same test on every subject or having each subject do every test.
Next time we can improve the lab by testing each temperature more than once
so we can get an accurate array of the data. We can also take the subjects blood
pressure after a certain interval to get a better idea of homeostasis.
One question that has stemmed from this lab is what other functions that have
homeostasis in our body are affected by temperature.
Works Cited
https://www.practicalclinicalskills.com/blood-pressure-measurement
http://www.bloodpressureuk.org/microsites/E-PositivePressure/Home/April2014/Theroleofhormo
nes
https://www.webmd.com/hypertension-high-blood-pressure/high-blood-pressure-effects-on-body
#1