This fall, the Stanford football team and the San Francisco 49ers began using Rapid Thermal Exchange (RTX), a new cooling system for athletes invented by two Stanford scientists. Normally, when athletes are overheated, they stand in front of giant misting machines or dump buckets of ice water over their heads. But they shouldn't. These methods are not only an inefficient way for an athlete to cool down, but they can actually be quite dangerous.

Take the case of Korey Stringer. When the Minnesota Vikings offensive tackle died in August 2001, his body temperature was nearly 109 degrees. He had been practicing in sweltering heat and, after vomiting three times, he left the field and sought relief in an air-conditioned trailer. There, he lost consciousness for good, eventually dying of multiple-organ failure brought on by heatstroke.

In the months after Stringer's death, Stanford's Craig Heller and Dennis Grahn conducted a series of experiments on "exertional hyperthermia" and the methods for combating it. What they found was surprising. Bringing someone suffering from hyperthermia into a cool environment, it turns out, is precisely the wrong thing to do. When warm skin encounters coldness, the blood vessels near the surface of the skin constrict. Heat becomes trapped inside the body and is redirected to the core, which causes a spike in temperature.

RTX, known informally as the Glove, cools athletes from the inside out, rather than the outside in. It is premised on the little-known fact that our palms, along with the soles of our feet and our cheeks, are "natural mammalian radiators," as Heller puts it. When the body is overheated, it naturally increases blood flow to the palms.

The Glove consists of an airtight, transparent chamber shaped like a giant Dustbuster, inside of which is a metal plate, resting on top of a pool of circulating cool water. A wilting athlete puts his or her hand into the chamber and places it on the plate, which is usually about 70 degrees. A mild vacuum pressure further increases blood flow to the hand. After the blood has been cooled in the athlete's palm, it returns through the veins directly to the heart, and is then circulated to overheated muscles and organs, cooling the body, according to trials, by more than three degrees in 10 minutes.

The system, which is being marketed by AVAcore Technologies, will sell for approximately $5,000 per unit. The biggest obstacle the inventors may have to overcome is the flip side of the paradox that killed Korey Stringer: because RTX cools gently, and from the inside, it doesn't feel immediately refreshing. "I thought it was hocus-pocus," said Kyle Matter, a Stanford quarterback. "But I tried it when my legs were cramping, and it brought my legs back."

 

When Things Heat Up
By www.coachsos.com
11/3/2002

I'm always looking for new ways to enhance performance and get the most out of my training. Lately I came across the Rapid Thermal Exchange (RTX), a new gadget that promises to do just that. The RTX is a glove like device that consists of a cooled steel plate with a housing. The steel plate extracts body heat through the palm, increasing performance by cooling down the body's core temperature.

The concept of the RTX glove evolved over years of research in animal physiology. Inventors Dennis Grahn and Craig Heller, Stanford animal physiologists, observed that all mammals cool themselves by releasing heat as sweat. The problem for humans occurs when we do things that push the envelope or that we're not adapted to do, like exercising so intensely that the sweat doesn't evaporate and carry off heat, or wearing heavy protective pads that don't allow heat to be dissipated readily. In order to help nature do its job under these conditions, the researchers began to look for artificial ways to augment our natural heat dissipating system.

They came up with the RTX, which takes advantage of and amplifies the body's normal cooling mechanism that consists of pumping blood to the surface of the skin so that heat can be released into the air. Unfortunately this cooling mechanism, besides being inadequate at times, can impair performance by shunting blood and oxygen away from exercising muscles. With less oxygen the muscles can't work as hard. Since humans seem to have specialized vascular structures in the palms and the soles of their feet, both of these areas were natural targets for the RTX.

The RTX that has been developed so far is a metallic, dome-shaped chamber that seals around the wrist. The chamber connects with thick tubes to a box-like, thermoelectric engine that pumps water below the hand, extracting heat from the palm and lowering the temperature of the blood. Blood then leaves the hand and returns to the heart, cooling the internal organs along the way. A vacuum draws more warm blood into the hand, sending more cooled blood back through the organs.

In a small pilot study, subjects pedaled to exhaustion in a "hot" room wearing two sets of long underwear, plastic rainsuits and hooded sweatshirts. After the subjects' temperatures rose to an average of 102 degrees, they stuck one hand in the RTX machine. Their body temperatures dropped to normal range within 15 minutes. When subjects cooled on their own in the same conditions, core temperatures remained elevated for 30 minutes.

As far as real world use, these are still being explored. However, several athletes have used the RTX with good results in alleviating fatigue. And it has a lot of potential for those of us who train hard. So don't be surprised if in the near future the RTX finds its way into your local health club or gym.

 

Help at Hand for Overheated Athletes
By LONDON (Reuters)
Wednesday, 23 October, 2002

LONDON (Reuters) - Scientists have developed a glove-like device that allows athletes to cool their overheated blood and could improve their performance by up to a fifth in sports like cycling and weight training.
The body normally cools blood by pumping it to the surface of the skin where heat is released into the air. But this means less blood is available to carry oxygen to muscles, and with less oxygen muscles cannot work as hard.

The Rapid Thermal Exchange (RTX), invented by Craig Heller and Dennis Grahn from the Stanford University in California, draws heat rapidly out of the body through a water-cooled steel plate in a hand-size device.

"When an athlete puts their hand in the chamber, the steel plate efficiently draws heat from blood circulating through their hand. The cooled blood flows back to the heart and is recirculated, cooling other organs by as much as three degrees Centigrade (5.4F)," New Scientist magazine said on Wednesday.

Athletes can return to the field legally reinvigorated after a session with the RTX, with more oxygen reaching their muscles in the cooled down blood, according to the scientists.

Julian Nikolchev, president of Avacore Technologies which has been licensed to market RTX said the hi-tech glove could also help save lives.

Cooling the bodies of people who have just had strokes or heart attacks can reduce the damage they suffer, and the device might be useful for increasing the effectiveness of cancer therapies like chemotherapy and radiation.

 

Glove promises cool benefit for athletes
By ANANOVA
Wednesday, 23 October, 2002

Stanford University researchers are developing a glove that stops athletes getting tired. It works by rapidly cooling the internal organs. Putting it on forms a seal around the wrist which serves to increase blood flow to the hand. A steel plate inside draws heat from blood circulating through the hand. The cooled blood flows back to the heart to be re-circulated around the body. The gadget is being developed by animal psychologists Craig Heller and Dennis Grahn at the Californian university. The glove - which is called RTX for Rapid Thermal Exchange - has performed well in tests and is attracting attention from outside the sporting sphere. New Scientist reports that the US Food and Drug Administration has approved its as a means of regulating patients' body temperature.

 

'Cool glove' helps athletes keep going
By BBC NEWS
Wednesday, 23 October, 2002

Exhausted athletes could be helped to finish a race with a high-tech glove. The device has been designed by US researchers, who say it can prevent athletes becoming tired and overheated by rapidly cooling their internal organs.

When a person is active, they are kept cool by diverting blood from deep inside the body to just beneath the skin of the palms of the hand and the soles of the feet. As the blood is pumped through these vessels, it loses heat through the skin, meaning internal organs do not become overheated. But this means there is less blood available to carry oxygen to the muscles which then cannot work as hard. This lack of energy is often described as "hitting the wall".

The glove, or Rapid Thermal Exchange, created by researchers from Stanford University in California, is designed to cool the body's organs without the need for blood to be diverted away from the muscles. They say it could also help runners or cyclists who have to pull out of races because of heat exhaustion who could use the glove and then rejoin the race.

Blood Flow

It is made up of a chamber containing a water-cooled steel plate.

The athlete puts their hand into the chamber, which has a seal around the wrist and a pump which creates a slight vacuum inside. This helps increase the blood flow to the hand while the steel plate draws heat from the blood circulating through the hand. The researchers say the cooled blood then flows back to the heart and is recirculated, cooling organs by up to 3°C.

In tests, eight professional cyclists wore the glove during a 30 kilometre time trial on exercise bikes in the laboratory. On average, they cycled 6% faster with the glove than without it.

Others who used the glove while weight training found the glove enabled them to manage around 20% more repetitions of bench presses.

Energy lapse

Julian Nikolchev, president of Avacore Technologies in Palo Alto, California which has been licensed to market the glove, says it could also have medical uses, such as cooling the bodies of people to reduce the damage caused by heart attacks or strokes. He said it could also be used to increase the effectiveness of cancer therapy because cancer cells are more vulnerable to chemotherapy and radiation at higher temperatures. The glove has already been approved by the US Food and Drugs Administration for regulating body temperature. But Bill Adcocks, an information officer for UK Athletics and a former Olympic marathon runner, cast doubt on how effective the glove could be in helping athletes. "When the blood circulates back to the heart, the length of vessels it goes through exceeds what it goes through in the hand. It would heat up very quickly." He said the "wall" that runners hit was linked to oxygen levels in the muscles, but more particularly glycogen levels. "People just run out of energy."

Mr Adcocks said: "I wouldn't wish to pour cold water on this totally, but as a former long-distance runner, it wouldn't have appealed to me."

 

For the record
By SPORTS ILLUSTRATED

Cooled. The bodies of Stanford football players by the Rapid Thermal Exchange, a machine developed by two biologists at the school. During games, overheated players place their hands on a cool, stainless steel plate in an airtight compartment, increasing blood flow to the palms, which causes body temperature to quickly drop by several degrees. "I thought it was hocus-pocus," says Stanford quarterback Kyle Matter, "but I tried it when my legs were cramping, and it brought my legs back." A modified model of the machine, which is also being used b the San Francisco 49ers, is expected to begin selling commercially in January.

Stanford ventures into hell's kitchen
By MICHELLE SMITH
San Francisco Chronicle

Stanford players walked off the practice field Thursday evening into a persistent breeze that bordered on chilly. By Saturday afternoon, the Cardinal will be walking into a furnace blast. Temperatures are forecast to top 100 degrees in Tempe, Ariz., this afternoon when the Cardinal (1-1) open the Pac-10 schedule at Arizona State (3- 1) in a rare 12:30 p.m. start.

There's a pretty compelling reason they haven't played an early-afternoon game in September in Tempe in 15 years: It's hot, very hot. In fact, with field temperatures up to, and possibly above, 120 degrees, this game could represent the hottest kickoff in Arizona State history. "Bring your shorts," Arizona State coach Dirk Koetter said. "There's no way around it. It's going to be hot, and it's going to be hot for both teams. We are hoping we can use it as an advantage. We live in it." The Phoenix forecast of 107 degrees is unseasonably high, even for the middle of the desert. Late-September temperatures often drop into the low-90s. Instead, triple digits have been hanging tough this week. Blame the unusual scheduling on a television executive sitting in an air- conditioned office. ABC, which did not televise an Arizona State game last season, chose this game to be a part of its regional telecast, tagging it with the 12:30 p.m. kickoff. Both schools get $250,000 checks just for being on the schedule, and in this case, enduring some pretty hideous conditions

"Our attitude is, don't accept distractions and don't make excuses," said Stanford coach Buddy Teevens, who knew plenty of scorching days from his time at Florida. "We obviously need to make sure we remain hydrated. But the dry heat is a little more forgiving than the humidity. I'm happy that if at least it's going to be hot, it shouldn't be hot and humid." Freshman linebacker Michael Craven is well-acquainted with the heat. He grew up in La Quinta (Riverside County). He spent plenty of late-summer afternoons practicing with his high school team in a comparable climate. "But we played all our games at night," Craven said. "We are doing this for purposes of TV, so that's the way it goes. We have enough players and enough depth to deal with it." Stanford will attempt to beat the heat in all the usual ways, with misters blowing full blast, cold towels and plenty of fluids. But the Cardinal also will be using a new cooling device called Rapid Thermal Exchange. Invented by a pair of Stanford professors, the RTE is a steel plate that extracts body heat through the palm.

Some Stanford players used the RTE at Boston College in the season opener, when temperatures on the turf got as high as 113 degrees early in the game, but the day got cooler as the game moved along, with sundown approaching by game's end. In this instance, it's more likely that the fourth quarter is going to be hotter than the first. "You can't let it be a factor in your mind," Stanford fullback Casey Moore said. "Once guys start walking and dragging around, that's when it starts to get to you and spreading among the guys. Everybody on the team's got to be on the same page."

The Cardinal also are going to have to deal with the heat provided by an Arizona State team riding the momentum of a three-game winning streak.

The Sun Devils have a pair of the conference's best players in junior defensive end Terrell Suggs and wide receiver Shaun McDonald. Suggs, in fact, is one of the best pass rushers in the nation. He has collected 20 sacks in the past two seasons and logged 18 tackles for a loss last season. Keeping Suggs away from quarterback Chris Lewis might just prove to be the key to any Stanford success. Keeping McDonald out the end zone will be another. The junior from Phoenix tied a school record for touchdown receptions in a game when he caught four scoring passes in the Sun Devils' come-from-behind victory over San Diego State two weeks ago. "They present a lot of problems we haven't seen collectively to date," Teevens said.

 

If the "Glove" fits.
Stanford coaches find new device provides athletes more endurance
By Kate Lilienthal
Palo Alto Weekly

Robert Weir, a three-time Olympian in discus and an assistant Stanford football coach, reached a point of strength in three months that would normally have taken 10 months. He attributes his success to a strange new device that he slipped his hand into between sets. The device cooled him down and decreased his recovery time. Within minutes, he'd be ready to go another round. Weir was beta-testing The Glove, a device that's captured both coach's and athlete's curiosity around Stanford's training areas, courts, and swimming pools. The San Francisco 49ers and the New York Rangers have also used it. Invented by Dr. H. Craig Heller, chairman of Stanford's Biological Sciences Department and Dr. Dennis Grahn, senior research scientist in biological sciences, The Glove quickly cools an over-heated athlete's body temperature at its core, not on the skin's surface. The premise is that cooling the body's temperature by one to two degrees enables a faster recovery, which means better performance, and often the difference between a win and loss. For professional athletes, it can also mean thousands of dollars or no money at all. "I didn't feel much happening when using The Glove, but the results were startling," says Weir. "It enabled me to stretch beyond what I can normally do. It's not a miracle worker, but it's going to become a regular part of my training program."

The Glove looks a bit like a character from science fiction. It's a metallic, dome-shaped chamber that seals around the wrist. The chamber connects with thick tubes to a box-like, thermoelectric engine that pumps water below the hand, extracting heat from the palm and lowering the temperature of the blood. Blood then leaves the hand and returns to the heart, cooling the internal organs along the way. A vacuum draws more warm blood into the hand, sending more cooled blood back through the organs. It won't serve drinks or warn of oncoming aliens, but Stanford's football coaches find the device intriguing nonetheless. In a recent game against Boston College, players used the device to avoid repeat calf cramping. It was a phenomenon that Stanford Football Head Trainer Charlie Miller, had never seen, "I was extremely impressed. When players begin to cramp, they almost always experience repeat episodes. We had no repeat episodes." During the training season, Miller's players used The Glove between sessions on double day practices. "The guys said they felt better during the second practice when they used The Glove," reports Miller. "I'm excited to see what results we get as the season progresses." Heller and Grahn recently founded a company to develop and market The Glove, called Avacore. The near-term target user is the serious athlete because the device only aids recovery when an athlete is really pushing for an incremental improvement.

Though the product's first application is for the sports and fitness industry, Heller thinks the most exciting potential uses of the technology may be medical. The Glove can heat as well as cool. It could warm patients after surgery, cool stroke and heart attack victims to extend the most critical period for treatment, or heat cancer patients to maximize the effectiveness of radiation and chemotherapy.

The concept of the Glove evolved over years of research in animal physiology. Heller and Grahn observed that all mammals cool themselves by releasing heat as sweat. The problem for humans occurs when we do things we weren't adapted to do, like exercising intensely or wearing heavy protective pads. When sweat flow is heavy, it doesn't evaporate and carry off heat. The researchers began to look for artificial ways to augment our system. "We wanted to understand why body temperature is such a huge part of fatigue, and find something that makes a difference in human performance," said Heller. The U.S. Army and Department of Defense have expressed an interest in using the device to enhance soldiers' stamina. The army imagines eventually being able to insert a micro version of The Glove into soldiers' boots to keep them cool. Nike and Reebok have expressed a similar vision for endurance athletes. It could help non-athletes and non-soldiers as well. For example, overweight people overheat quickly when exercising. Using The Glove, overweight people could workout for longer periods at the same heart rate, decreasing the time it takes them to shed pounds and get in shape.

The effects of The Glove could be compared to steroids, except that the device doesn't falsely manipulate the body. Instead, it enhances the body's natural processes, like working out on a treadmill or at altitude.

"The Glove is just a practical device. Athletes still have to do the hard work," said Weir. "And winning still comes down to attitude and training." For Heller and Grahn, The Glove represents only a single step in their quest to improve human performance. Says Heller with thoughtful enthusiasm, "This process we've discovered for alleviating human fatigue only raises more questions. It just whets our appetite to uncover other human limits we know are out there, and to develop ways to overcome them."

 

Taking the Heat off Athletes
They can keep cool by placing their hands in a new device that cools them from the inside out.
By JIM GOLDMAN
Tech Live Silicon Valley bureau chief

STANFORD, California -- A way to cool down athletes competing in scorching temperatures could be right in the palm of their hands. Just ask Stanford University quarterback Kyle Matter. "I saw it and I kinda thought it was R2-D2 or something," Matter said after a recent practice in Palo Alto, California. He's talking about a new device called the Rapid Thermal Exchange, developed by two Stanford professors and sold by up-and-coming Avacore Technologies in Palo Alto. After a recent game against Boston College, Matter swears by it. "I got a little dehydrated in the course of the first half, and then I was cramping up in my legs," he said. "I would just stick my hand in there for no more than three or four minutes at a time, and it did make a difference."

Cool life-saving tech

But overheating on the playing field can be more than mere inconvenience. It has proven deadly for some players. A device like this one, some Stanford team officials say, could be a lifesaver.

How does this little technological marvel work? A visit to the company's modest headquarters showed the secrets behind the device. "Place your hand on a heat-transfer surface," Avacore CEO Julian Nikolchev said. The battery-powered system relies on the palm of the hand, a natural radiator point. Cool it, researchers say, and you can cool the entire body. Using chips and software, the machine mixes water to a precise temperature, circulating it under a metal plate inside a vacuum chamber. The suction inside then draws the body's warm blood to the palm, the plate cools it, and the cooler blood then recirculates through the body.

Little goes a long way

The system can reduce core body temperature by as much as 5 degrees. That may not sound significant, but think about how you normally feel with a body temperature of 98.6 degrees, and how badly you would feel with a 103-degree fever. Even small reductions in temperature can have a significant impact on the body, Nikolchev says. "We're talking 2 to 3 degrees," Nikolchev said. "One or 2 degrees makes a big difference."

You're probably asking yourself, why not just stick your hands in a bucket of ice water?

"Because you're just cooling the skin," Stanford trainer Charlie Miller said. "What happens when you cool the skin, you get a vaso-constriction, blood vessels on the skin close up because they're trying to retain body heat. It doesn't really cool you down at the core." In other words, unlike a cold shower, which may give an athlete an immediate sense of relief but really does nothing to bring the body's core temperature down, the machine gently cools the blood, reducing body temperature from the inside out.

Putting it to the test

The machine will come in handy at Stanford's upcoming contest against Arizona State. For the first time in 15 years, the NCAA has scheduled a day game at Sun Devil Stadium. Until now, games weren't played during the day because of the overwhelming heat. Weather forecasters say that on game day the temperature will exceed 110 degrees and could surpass 125 degrees on the field. Stanford team officials say the Rapid Thermal Exchange will definitely get a workout.

And at a time when heat stroke deaths on the playing field continue to shock fans and teammates every year, this system could be just what the trainer ordered.
Posted September 27, 2002

 

Stanford's plan to beat the heat
Team Using Cooling Device In Desert
By JON WILNER
Mercury News

Whether the thermometer hits 100 on the field, as forecast, or 120, as feared, Stanford probably will encounter the most searing conditions in team history Saturday at Arizona State. To accommodate ABC television -- and collect a $250,000 per-team paycheck -- the Cardinal and the Sun Devils agreed to the first 12:30 p.m. September kickoff in 15 years at Sun Devil Stadium. The teams will use an array of traditional cooling devices, from sideline misters to ice-soaked towels. But Stanford also has a secret weapon: A body-cooling machine called the Rapid Thermal Exchange. Developed by two Stanford professors and sold by AVAcore Technologies of Palo Alto, the device uses a stainless steel plate to extract body heat through the palm. Both the 49ers and Stanford successfully tested the Rapid Thermal Exchange (RTX) during training camp, and Stanford used it three weeks ago at Boston College. "I thought it was hocus-pocus," Stanford quarterback Kyle Matter said. "But in the second half my legs started cramping, and I was willing to try anything. I don't know how, but it brought my legs back. Even if it's a placebo effect, it works." The misters and fog machines usually seen on sidelines simply cool the skin. But the RTX lowers the core body temperature, which helps prevent cramping and heat exhaustion and aids recovery.

"I'm not sure about scientific studies, but from an anecdotal standpoint, the results are amazing," Stanford trainer Charlie Miller said. "We're taking three or four machines to Arizona State." Developed by Stanford professors Craig Heller and Dennis Grahn, the RTX received Food and Drug Administration approval this summer. The machine is based on "the principles of mammalian thermo-regulation," according to AVAcore. Mammals have radiator points, like a rabbit's ears or a dog's tongue, that release heat from the body. The bottom of the feet is a radiator point in humans. So are the palms. The RTX works by pumping cold water through a hose to the underside of the steel plate, which is positioned about waist high. The palm is placed on the plate and encased in a plastic shell. The shell generates suction, which draws blood to the palm and accelerates the thermal exchange.

The plate does not feel cold, and athletes cannot detect a change in body temperature. But the RTX has made believers of Stanford and the 49ers. "One day in training camp, we had a guy with a horrible headache," said Jerry Attaway, the 49ers' strength and conditioning coach. "I said, `Let's do this,' and I put his hand in the machine. His headache disappeared. "I'd like to know more about it. But the weather was unusually cool in Stockton, so we didn't have many chances to use it."

Barring a change in weather, Stanford will make ample use of the RTX on Saturday. Temperatures usually drop into the mid-90s in Tempe, Ariz., in late September, but not this year. It was 107 degrees Tuesday, and even if the standing air temperature is 95 degrees at kickoff, it could be 110 to 120 on the field. "The weatherman has thrown us a curveball," Arizona State Coach Dirk Koetter said. "There's no way around it. It will be hot for both teams. We hope to use that to our advantage, but I have no data to back that up." Stanford has discussed how to cope with the heat. But the players and coaches believe ultimately it's a matter of mind over thermometer. "It's all about your mindset," said tailback Kerry Carter, who was a freshman when Stanford lost 69-17 at Texas in oppressive humidity. "People have been talking about what it will be like at ASU, and we know it will be a little hotter than it is here, but we've all been in the heat before. If you get tired, the next guy just steps in." When making its Pacific-10 Conference broadcast selections in May, ABC considered two games for Sept. 29: Stanford at ASU and Oregon State at USC. The latter was more appealing, with two preseason favorites and the Southern California TV market. But the Pac-10 limits teams to six appearances on ABC, and it wanted to show USC against Auburn, Stanford and Notre Dame. If ABC picked USC-Oregon State, it would have only two more shots at the Trojans. "ABC knew it couldn't do the USC-Oregon State game and hold all those appearances for USC later in the year, so it locked in ASU-Stanford," said Duane Lindberg, the Pac-10's assistant commissioner for communications. "Stanford has won five consecutive games televised by ABC: against USC in 2000 and against Oregon, UCLA, Arizona and Notre Dame in 2001.

Injury update: Carter (sprained knee), quarterback Chris Lewis (bruised thigh) and guard Greg Schindler (sprained knee) are expected to play. Backup tight end Matt Traverso (sprained ankle) is questionable.

Keeping the body cool has become a popular topic in the National Football League. With the tragic death of Minnesota Vikings tackle Korey Stringer a year ago, teams are paying more attention then ever to making sure players do not overheat in the hot summer days of training camp practice. San Francisco has always taken pride in its treatment of players and this camp is no exception to the practice. Utilizing a technology developed by a Bay Area bio-sciences firm, the 49ers once again find themselves at the forefront of NFL teams.

The 49ers are working in conjunction with Avacore and their Rapid Thermal Exchange product to help keep players core body temperatures in control. "The conventional means to cool the body is to cool from the outside in," said Frank Primus of Avacore. "Ice and fans make the skin feel good but unless you're cooling the core, you're not cooling the body."

RTX was originally developed on the principles of mammalian thermoregulation. All mammals have "radiators," specific regions of the body surface designed for dissipating excess heat from the body core to the environment. In humans, some of these radiator surfaces are found in the palms of the hands (and soles of the feet).

When an athlete gets hot, blood flow naturally increases through these skin regions to dissipate heat through specialized blood vessels called arteriovenous anastomoses (AVAs). RTX enhances heat extraction through these radiator surfaces by amplifying local bloodflow using a proprietary and scientific combination of carefully controlled temperature settings and slight vacuum.

The RTX device is a small concealed chamber in which the athlete places his hand on a steel plate that is temperature controlled by cool water running through channels underneath the plate's surface. To achieve the full benefit, Avacore suggests the use of the RTX to be between 1-3 minutes.

In addition to the 49ersm the device is being used at Stanford and will soon be used by several NFL teams.

 

Cool Invention: Researchers say device, fitted to hand, reduces body temperature
By JANET RAE BROOKS
The Salt Lake Tribune

Dogs pant to cool themselves. Elephants radiate heat through their ears. Humans sweat. At least, that's what the textbooks have been telling us. Now, two California researchers are challenging the accepted wisdom that sweating is the defense of choice for overheated humans with data showing that significant cooling takes place through special blood vessels in the palms of the hands. Using a specially developed machine, the Stanford University scientists found that as much heat could be extracted from the palm of one hand as across the entire body during maximal sweating.

"It's making us rethink how our bodies cool themselves," said Andy Subudhi, an exercise physiologist at The Orthopedic Specialty Hospital's Institute for Sports Science and Medicine in Murray, where a prototype of the machine is being tested. More effective cooling would allow athletes to train harder, recover faster and avoid potentially lethal overheating.

Although testing of the new RTX technology -- for Rapid Thermal Exchange -- is focused on athletes, others who work in the heat such as firefighters and miners could also benefit. So could soldiers clad in biological warfare suits or pilots waiting in hot planes to take off from aircraft carriers. Those suffering from chronic diseases that are exacerbated by heat, such as multiple sclerosis, could also make use of the cooling technology. Heart-attack and stroke sufferers could be cooled to reduce tissue damage. By reversing the process, cancer patients could be warmed to enhance the effects of chemotherapy. Several NFL teams have leased prototypes of the heat-extraction machine to use at minicamps and training camps this summer. As the technology shrinks, the device could be mounted on a bicycle, tucked in a glove or eventually fit into a marathoner's training shoes or a soldier's boots. The workings of the RTX machine, patented through Stanford, are housed in a blue box about the size of a cooler. A tube extending from the box sends cool water to a metal plate inside a clear plastic bubble, where subjects place their hands.

Like elephants' ears or dogs' tongues, human palms contain "radiators" where blood is pumped when core temperature increases. The RTX technology capitalizes on this natural cooling mechanism by introducing a slight vacuum and particular temperature settings to the metal plate. A second tube removes water heated by the warm blood, while a third tube produces the vacuum. In a small pilot study, RTX inventors Dennis Grahn and Craig Heller, Stanford animal physiologists, had subjects pedal to exhaustion in a "hot" room wearing two sets of long underwear, plastic rainsuits and hooded sweatshirts. After the subjects' temperatures rose to an average of 102 degrees, they stuck one hand in the RTX machine. Their body temperatures dropped to normal range within 15 minutes.

When subjects cooled on their own in the same conditions, core temperatures remained elevated for 30 minutes. "The difference was phenomenal," said Craig Coombs, vice president of Human Studies for AVAcore Technologies, the Palo Alto, Calif., company marketing the RTX technology. "You still feel hot because you don't have any thermo-sensors inside your body, but you feel totally refreshed." In other small-scale trials, the researchers also found that athletes who used RTX between sets while weight training made impressive strength gains. Subjects who rode stationary bikes while using RTX were able to pedal up to 40 percent more and recovered more quickly. Although the technology is simple, the machine has produced some convincing data, said Subudhi. "If you look at the difference between cooling yourself in an air-conditioned room or in this machine, this will cool you much more effectively," he said. The studies, however, will need to be repeated on larger populations, he said. And to gain wide acceptance for the RTX machine, AVAcore Technologies must be able to explain how it cools so fast and to advise coaches and athletes how to use it during training and competition. Should athletes be pre-cooled before their workouts? If used between bouts of exercise, or during games, for how long should the machine be used? At what temperature settings? Does using RTX truly aid recovery and allow athletes to work harder? Does using RTX prevent athletes from acclimatizing to the heat on their own? Could athletes become reliant on the technology? "There's so many questions," said Subudhi.

 

Cooling your hands may cut fatigue
Device may also help users boost their strength
By LOIS M. COLLINS
Deseret News staff writer

Heat and fatigue are just two symptoms of overexertion that plague athletes. And fixing one may curb the other. It's a theory that could have important ramifications not only for athletes but for senior citizens, people with fevers and those whose internal thermostats just don't function right. Sports medicine experts at TOSH, the Orthopedic Specialty Hospital on the Cottonwood Hospital campus in Murray, are creating a test to see whether cooling the hand after exercise aids recovery time and boosts athletic performance. Avacore Technologies www.avacore.com is banking that its RTX (Rapid Thermal eXchange) will do just that. The Palo Alto, Calif., company based the device on work done by scientists at Stanford University. Now different medical and athletic facilities are testing its effectiveness.

Mammals are typically covered by fur, so they get rid of heat through their foot pads or vascular areas on the tongue, just like a dog. Humans seem to have specialized vascular structures in the palms and the soles of their feet, too, said Craig Coombs, vice president of human studies at Avacore.

"What we're looking at is exercise recovery -- in particular, if you can remove heat from somebody in between sets of exercises and allow them to exercise that much better in subsequent sets. When you get overheated or just start sweating, 20 to 30 percent of cardiac output is going to skin away from the major muscle groups. If you do something to reduce heat load, that much more of the cardiac output is available to the muscles. There are quite a few studies that show that."

Studies with the Stanford football team showed that if players did hard sprints for three minutes, then rested for two and cooled their hands for one, by the seventh set those who were cooled gained 40 yards on those who weren't cooled. Bench-pressing strength increased by 18 percent, Coombs said. Other studies have been done at the University of Montana, and now Avacore's researching whether it helps to treat people working with forest fires.

The folks at TOSH had a hard time picturing the device, much less how it would work, said Andy Subudhi, exercise physiologist, who's helping tailor the facility's pilot study, which will initially just help design a bigger clinical trial. "Sometimes you have to see something to figure out how it could work."

He describes it as similar to a football that's been cut in half, end to end. A cuff that seals leads into the center of it, where there's a metal plate that is cooled by water being passed through it. The temperature of the water determines the temperature of the plate in this unit, which is connected by a hose to a tank of water in a vacuum.

The study subject places his palm against the metal plate for about two minutes. Initial studies have shown that can lower the core body temperature.

"We aid the natural body process of dumping heat through the hands. It's much more effective than common sweating or fluid methods. It reduces the core temperature more rapidly. Exertion of any sort causes elevation. Athletes typically exert themselves. And heat is more commonly the first symptom your body perceives as fatigue," Coombs said. "By reducing heat, you reduce fatigue and are able to work out longer and harder and your endurance and strength go up very rapidly. That's another benefit in addition to cooling."

TOSH will spend four weeks with tests like having athletes run -- hard -- uphill on a treadmill, then break up rest periods with cooling periods of at least two minutes before measuring their recovery times. The cooling periods will be randomized. What they learn will be used to create a longer, more structured clinical trial, Subudhi said.

The TOSH team's both curious and hopeful. The mechanism of cooling that the device claims to tap into is not well understood in humans, he said.

"We want to study not just the effects but why. That's why we're spending so much time in the planning stage to design a trial that will do that."

The test subjects will be athletes, because that's a population TOSH is asked to make recommendations to regarding conditioning and training.

Researchers at the Orthopedic Specialty Hospital in Salt Lake are testing a cutting edge device that could change the way athletes train and participate in their sports. It's called RTX which stands for Rapid Thermal Exchange. Developers believe it could enable athletes to perform better and train more safely than ever before. Shauna Lake reports.

It looks a little like science fiction but this device has a very real purpose. "It's a technology that helps rid your body of heat that builds up during exercise so hopefully you can exercise longer and perform better," said Andrew Subudhi, Ph.D., exercise physiologist. The RTX system is now being tested here at the Orthopedic Specialty Hospital on high performance athletes. Researchers are trying to determine if placing your hand on this metal plate can bring down your body temperature quickly.

"It's cooled to room temperature and that helps extract the heat from your body through the hand," said Subudhi.

The concept is based on nature. Animals have the ability to cool themselves with their own bodies. For example, a bear cools itself through the pads on its paws. Researchers believe humans have that same ability. They developed the RTX system to help athletes reduce body heat quickly so they don't tire out as fast.

"It turns out a lot of what we interpret as fatigue is actually heat build up," said Craig Coombs of Avacore Technologies.

The system is being tested on athletes who undergo an intense bout of training, then rest for a few minutes. Researchers want to see if the cooling device can help these athletes recover more quickly.

"At this point, the preliminary results indicate it may have an effect on recovery from exercise from these intermittent bouts of exercise," Subudhi said.

The hope is that the device will enable athletes to train longer, perform better during competition and reduce the potential for the serious effects of overheating. And while it's currently being tested on athletes, the inventors of the RTX system say this technology could eventually be used in professions such as fire fighting.

"It can be applied to any occupation where heat is a problem," Coombs said.

In addition to the athletes here in Utah at Tosh, the RTX system is currently being tested on athletes in the NFL and the NCAA.