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Another factor at play here is the cardiovascular system. Biro, Masudo, et al (2003) wrote an article about the benefits of the induction of systemic vasodilation for those with congestive heart failure. This may be a short-term adaptation of the body stemming from the reduced ability to sweat in those conditions, or it may be a harbinger of the more ...

Your body requires energy to function. Just like in a powerplant, the energy comes from oxidizing fuel (food, instead of coal or gas). The efficiency Of conversion is rather low, and results in excess heat, which must be rejected to the environment. When it's cool, the heat is easily convected to the surrounding air. When it's warmer, or you're producing ...

The body can never stop working. If the body stops working, you die. And while the body is working it cannot avoid generating heat. Being in an environment somewhat colder than the body makes getting rid of this excess heat easier, and is thus more comfortable. The body's abilities for warming itself are much more sophisticated than its abilities for ...

The previous answer isn't quite correct, because, well, blood flow is complicated and the body has autoregulatory mechanisms. As Alex mentioned, vasoconstriction doesn't occur in capillaries because they lack a muscle layer. It does occur in the small arterioles before and after the glomerulus (the afferent and efferent arterioles, respectively). ...

From Wikipedia entry on thirst: In the mammalian brain, the posterior surface of the hypothalamus forms the front wall of the third ventricle (a cerebrospinal fluid-filled cavity) and clusters of cells (osmoreceptors) on this surface, notably in the organum vasculosum of the lamina terminalis (OVLT) and subfornical organ (SFO), signal this ...

To my knowledge, capillaries in general and the renal capillaries in glomeruli in particular do not have muscle cells to constrict. The latters have only a basal layer with podocytes lying directly on it (link to the open textbook). Therefore, the vasoconstriction takes place only in arterioles before the glomeruli, and this vasoconstriction leads to the ...