Human urinary catecholamines in relation to climate

Abstract

Urinary catecholamine determinations were employed to appraise human sympathoadrenal activity in different seasons (autumn, winter, and spring), the study being made in a subtropical climate, where maximum temperature in these seasons averaged, respectively, 66, 60, and 74 F. Two hundred and thirty-one healthy men were studied under standardized laboratory conditions, and significant variation with season (P < .01) was established for excretion of both epinephrine and norepinephrine and for the norepinephrine-to-epinephrine ratio, the latter index providing the most clear-cut pattern of variation with season, and suggesting greater activity in the sympathoadrenal system in winter than in autumn, with reversal in spring. Cigarette smoking and anxiety, acting singly or jointly, had modifying effects on climate-induced changes in epinephrine excretion. chronic cold effects in man; bioclimatology; seasonal sympathoadrenal activity; epinephrine and norepinephrine excretion in chronic cold; smoking and epinephrine excretion; anxiety and epinephrine excretion Submitted on May 13, 1963