Women who have reached menopause commonly experience hot flashes. Hot flashes are intense feelings of heat that cause sweating, blood flow to the skin, which causes the skin to redden. They can be exquisitely uncomfortable and, unfortunately, there are few effective treatments for hot flashes, if any. Hot flashes are brought on but subtle increases in ambient or body temperature. In fact, most women who suffer from hot flashes have difficulty in places that others would only find warm or even slightly cool. The neurobiology of hot flashes is complex involving a chronic lack of estrogen and other hormones and activation of the brainstem, insula and prefrontal cortex. However, at their core, hot flashes are caused by a basic change in a woman’s internal temperature range. Simply put, the set point of their thermostat is lower. Consequently, affected women’s bodies perceive that they are too hot and their body takes steps to return them to homeostasis. Specifically, they experience uncomfortable sensations of being hot that the brain hopes will make them seek a cool place and blood is sent to the skin to release what has been determined to be excess heat.
A rather simple solution is to use the glabrous skin on the wrist to wrest control of the thermoregulatory system back from menopause. By applying concentrated cooling on the non-hairy underside of the wrist with the Cooling Cuff, the specialized blood vessels in that area can rapidly reduce core body temperature and signal to the hypothalamus that the body is actually cooler than other sensors in the body are reporting. In that way, the Cooling Cuff can reduce hot flashes and allow women to live and work in various environments.