What are the health effects of exposure to cold?
Cooling of body parts may result in various nonfreezing cold injuries. Fingers are at greatest risk because this area does not have major muscles to produce heat. In addition, the body will preserve heat by favouring the internal organs, thus reducing the flow of blood to the extremities under cold conditions. Hands tend to get cold more quickly than the torso because: • they lose heat more rapidly since they have a higher surface area-to-volume ratio, and • they are more likely to be in contact with colder surfaces than other parts of the body.
