Risk Factors for Excessive Sensitivity to Cold and Physical Characteristics:A Prospective Cohort Study / 日本東洋医学雑誌

ABSTRACT

PURPOSE: To determine risk factors for excessive sensitivity to cold (ESC) in relation to physical features.DESIGN: A prospective cohort study carried out between July 7 and November 14,2008.PARTICIPANTS AND METHODS: Seventy female junior college students with no ESC at baseline, and a median age of 20 years, participated. We used a numerical rating scale (NRS) to classify each ESC sensation over the five days in this July-November period.To confirm physical symptoms, we used Terasawa's diagnostic scores for ki, ketsu, and sui. We defined ESC as mean NRSgeq ≥ 5.RESULTS: We documented 17 participants with ESC in November. The multivariate adjusted odds ratio for ESC was11.6 (95% CI 1.9 to 97.5) for the physical characteristic “edema”. Participants with ESC were shorter in stature than participants without ESC (-5.9cm ; 95% CI -8.6 to -3.1).CONCLUSION: Participants with edema and short stature have a high risk for ESC.