Hypothermia is a condition marked by an abnormally low internal body temperature. It develops when body heat is lost faster than it can be replaced. Normal muscular and cerebral functions become impaired and death can follow if it becomes worse. This takes place below 96º F and lower.

Signs of hypothermia include confusion or sleepiness; slurred speech or shallow breathing; weak pulse or low blood pressure; stiffness in arms or legs or poor control over body movements. Severe hypothermia can cause an irregular heartbeat, leading to heart failure and death.

Symptoms of Hypothermia

Shivering is typically first sign of hypothermia. It eventually becomes uncontrollable. However with severe hypothermia, shivering stops. One of key indicators that victim has moved from mild/moderate hypothermia to severe hypothermia is that he/she is no longer shivering.

Behavior changes like complaining, difficulty in speaking, and uncoordinated movements. Victims will struggle to perform simple tasks like walking a straight line or zipping up their coat. With severe hypothermia, behavior changes from erratic to apathetic to unresponsive. Uncharacteristic behavior like inappropriate excitement or lethargy, poor judgment, and poor decision making are common.

Cold, pale and blue-gray skin due to constricting blood vessels. May develop into a coma, with dilated pupils making it difficult to determine if victim is alive or dead.

How Heat is Lost from Body

Convection: Heat is carried away from body by currents of air or water. Wind chill is an example of convection.

Conduction: Transfer of heat between two contacting surfaces. Water conducts heat 25 times faster than air and steel is even faster than water. Generally conductive heat loss accounts for only about 2% of overall loss. However, with wet clothes loss is increased 5 times.

Evaporation: Heat loss when water is removed from body during sweating and respiration.

Radiation: The loss of radiated heat from a warm body to a surrounding colder environment. This is more significant on cold, cloudless nights. Factors important in radiant heat loss are surface area and temperature gradient.

What medical condition affects more of us than heart disease, arthritis, or cancer, and why is it suddenly such a compelling issue?

According to thousands of medical journal articles, Calcification — also known as calcium deposits, hardening of arteries, cysts, stones, and hard plaque — happens in all those illnesses and more.

And it just struck home for millions.

Throngs of baby boomers are rushing to get checked for calcification since rock icon David Bowie and former President Clinton had emergency operations for it. David Letterman, Larry King, CBS’s René Syler, actress Koo Stark, and many pro athletes have it too.

Calcification is hardening of our body tissue by calcium salts. These salts contain other minerals, such as phosphorus, and are often harmful. They are dangerous because they provoke chronic and painful swelling, gumming up arteries and organs, with crippling or fatal results.

Calcification can sometimes be a disease on its own, but is more frequently found in other illnesses. Calcium deposits are in breast and ovarian cancer. Breast implant patients occasionally require surgery to remove calcium deposits that develop around implant. The deposits show up as spots on mammograms and can be mistaken for cancer.

Calcification is often in arthritis, heart disease, and diabetes. Many arthritis sufferers who have calcium deposits go on to develop heart disease, but until recently link has never been understood. Nor has one between osteoporosis—loss of bone calcium—and seemingly contrary growth of calcium deposits elsewhere as illness progresses.

Although calcification occurs more frequently as we age, being young is no defense: it is often in sport injuries, and sidelines many athletes. Bursitis and tendonitis can contain calcium deposits. Kidney stones are usually calcified at center.

More than half a trillion dollars are spent annually to treat calcification-related diseases. So why haven’t more stories explained it until now? Because until now, no one knew where it came from or how to get rid of it.