Why am I always cold? Common causes, and what to check first

There’s a thermostat on the wall of a shared office, and by mid-afternoon it has split the room into two teams. Team Sweater has both hands wrapped around a mug, a cardigan on, and a small heater under the desk that facilities doesn’t know about. Team T-shirt is at the next desk, perfectly comfortable, and possibly about to ask if anyone else finds it a bit stuffy in here. Same room, same air, same number on the wall. So which of them is right? (And if the thing that’s really bothering you is being tired, why am I so tired all the time is the longer read.)

If you’re on Team Sweater and constantly cold, you’ve probably typed “why am I always cold” into a search box at some point, half expecting a list of illnesses. That’s what I expected too. I went looking for diseases and found a thermostat. The room may be set for someone else. In many studies, women say they are more bothered by cool rooms than men^[1], and a 2023 review puts much, but not all, of the difference in how men and women respond to heat and cold down to body size and shape^[2]. And for some people, iron-deficiency anemia or an underactive thyroid can be part of the picture^[3][4]. So that’s my argument for this post: start with the room, because it’s the cheapest thing to check, and because the feeling on its own can’t tell you which of these is yours. (Which is also why this ends with a ten-second test and no verdict.)

I went looking for diseases and found a thermostat.

If being cold is new or getting worse, or it comes with other changes such as unusual tiredness, dry skin, thinning hair, weight gain or fingers that change color, please talk to your own doctor. Those changes appear on the US government’s health pages for iron-deficiency anemia, an underactive thyroid and Raynaud’s phenomenon^[5][4][6], and a doctor can check for causes this memo doesn’t cover.

Please do not touch the thermostat: Why do I feel so cold in a room where everyone else is fine?

If you feel cold when others in the same room are fine, one possibility is that the room was never set with you in mind. And that makes sense as a suspicion, right? Somebody picked that number on the wall, and it definitely wasn’t you. But this one is more than office grumbling, because in 2015 two researchers put it in a journal.

Their names are Boris Kingma and Wouter van Marken Lichtenbelt, and they published a short letter in Nature Climate Change. They argued that the comfort standards behind office heating and cooling, developed in the 1960s, “were based on the average male”^[7]. So how does a temperature standard end up based on a guy? Well, one of the things that goes into those standards is metabolic rate, which is roughly how fast the body burns energy, which mostly ends up as heat. And the standard value for it, they wrote, “may overestimate female metabolic rate”^[7].

If they’re right, the thermostat may be assuming the average woman in the sweater makes more heat than she does. That would mean the room is set for the average man of the 1960s, who has never once attended any of your meetings.

But the people who write the standard had something to say about it. That’s a group called ASHRAE, and they pushed back within days. Bjarne Olesen, a former chair of its comfort-standard committee, said the letter looked at only 16 women doing sedentary work, with NO men to compare them to, and that the standard rests on research with “more than 1,000 subjects with an equal amount of women and men”^[8]. So what did he think was behind the complaints? Clothes. Women, he said, “better adapt their clothing to summer conditions while men are still wearing suits and ties”^[8]. Which is a polite way of saying he thinks the problem is the suits.

So who won? Honestly, I can’t referee it, and a letter and a reply were never going to settle this anyway. But they did leave me with the obvious next question, which is whether anyone has checked who actually feels cold in these rooms.

Is it cold in here, or is it just me: Do women feel colder than men?

Well, somebody has checked, and the short version is that in many studies women are more likely than men to say they’re unhappy with the temperature of a room, especially when it runs cool (which, annoyingly, is not quite the same thing as being colder)^[1]. In 2012 a researcher named Karjalainen published a review in a journal called Indoor Air (yes, there’s a whole journal for indoor air, and I love that). The review went through lab studies and field studies, and it found that women were more likely than men to say they were unhappy with indoor temperatures^[1].

So… women just like the room warmer? That was my guess. But in most of its studies, men and women showed no significant difference in the temperature that feels neutral, neither warm nor cool. Where they differed was in what happens when a room drifts away from that point: women were more sensitive to it, especially toward cool^[1].

Go back to the two desks. Those two might well agree on the perfect temperature. It’s when the room slips below it that women, on average, tend to notice sooner. And look at what the review was counting, too. It counted people saying they were unhappy with the temperature, which isn’t the same thing as measuring who is actually colder than others.

OK, but why would that be? A 2023 review of lab studies, by Greenfield and three colleagues, says differences in body size and shape “can largely, but not entirely” account for how differently men and women respond to heat and cold^[2]. So a big part of the difference in how men and women respond to heat and cold looks like a difference in body size and shape, though not all of it. The two reviews measured different things, though, so I can’t say how much of the office gap size explains.

If you work from home, the thermostat is finally yours, so this is the easiest part to test (and there’s nobody left to argue with about it, except possibly your heating bill).

And if size and shape matter that much, you’d think people with less body fat would be the coldest of all. I thought so too, so that’s where I looked next.

Two hours in 5°C air, for science: Do people with less body fat get cold faster?

It sounds obvious. Less padding, less insulation, colder person. But the studies I found can’t tell us whether having less body fat makes people feel cold more easily, because they are tiny and they don’t agree with each other.

In the first one, from 1998, four women with low body fat and four with higher body fat sat in 5°C air for two hours^[9], which is roughly a whole movie, in the cold, with no movie. And after that much exposure to cold, the women with less body fat had a slightly larger drop in core body temperature^[9]. So far, so sensible. Then in 2000, some of the same researchers had women sit in cool water, and this time it was the women with MORE body fat who reported more discomfort^[10].

So… which is it? Well, studies this small can’t carry a rule about bodies in general (the first one had eight people in it, which is fewer than most group chats). So I’m not going to tell you that having less body fat will make you feel colder, or that it won’t. What these two did do was send me to the part of the body that complains first.

Budget cuts, starting with the fingers: Why your hands and feet may go cold first

If it’s your fingers and toes that go before the rest of you, there’s some plumbing behind that.

An older review, written by Charkoudian in 2003, says the control of blood flow in the skin is vital to how we regulate body temperature, and that local cooling of the skin “can decrease skin blood flow to minimal levels”^[11]. And my plain summary, which goes a step past her wording, is this: in the cold, the body narrows blood vessels in the skin to keep warmth near the middle, and the fingers and toes pay for it, which would be one reason hands and feet feel the cold before the rest of you does. It’s a bit like a company that protects head office and cuts the budget at the branch furthest away. Seen that way, cold hands can be your circulation making a choice.

And the 2023 review thinks this is part of the men-and-women story too. It says sex differences in how blood vessels in the skin first respond to heat and cold, and the changes in blood flow that follow, “likely contribute to the heightened thermal awareness observed in women”^[2]. (“Heightened thermal awareness” is a lovely way of saying “noticed the room got cold before you did”.)

So does a bit of padding change the picture here? Well, in a 2009 study, researchers pointed an infrared camera at people’s hands while they rested in a comfortable room^[12], which may be the easiest study anyone has ever taken part in (sit there, have hands). There were 23 people with obesity and 13 people of normal weight. And the camera put fingernail-bed temperature at 33.9°C in the people with obesity and 28.6°C in the people of normal weight (so a little over five degrees apart), although their core body temperatures did not differ^[12]. So body fat was linked with warmer fingertips here. But it’s a small study, and it says nothing direct about thin people.

Figure 1Fingertip temperature at rest

Fingernail-bed temperature, measured with an infrared camera while people rested in a comfortable room (°C)

23 people with obesity33.9°C

13 people of normal weight28.6°C

It has a name, at least: What is cold intolerance, and which medical condition can cause that cold feeling?

So does being the cold one have a proper medical name? It does, and it’s cold intolerance. MedlinePlus, the health encyclopedia of the US National Library of Medicine, defines it as “an abnormal sensitivity to a cold environment or cold temperatures”^[29]. Which, in plain words, is an increased sensitivity to cold temperatures. So it’s a name for coping badly with cold environments, and it isn’t a diagnosis.

The same page gives a short list of the causes of cold intolerance: anemia, anorexia nervosa, blood vessel problems such as Raynaud phenomenon, chronic severe illness, general poor health, a problem with the hypothalamus (a part of the brain that controls body temperature) and an underactive thyroid^[29]. It also says cold intolerance “can be a symptom of a problem with metabolism”^[29]. And if you’ve ever read one of those “reasons you may feel cold” articles, several of these may look familiar, since they turn up on the lists I looked at, usually in a different order and with a few extras.

But notice what that list doesn’t do. It says what can make a person feel cold, and it doesn’t say how often each one turns out to be the reason (I found no study that counts that, either). And the page says some people, “often thin older women”, do not tolerate cold temperatures because they have very little body fat, which I’ll come back to under body weight.

The page has its own line about when to ask, and it’s about persistent cold sensitivity and not about one cold afternoon: “Contact your health care provider if you have long-term or extreme intolerance to cold”^[29].

So I’ll go through the ones I could find good sources for, one at a time. None of it can tell you which, if any, is behind your own cold.

What is Raynaud’s phenomenon, and is it rare?

Some fingers do more than feel cold. The US government’s health page on Raynaud’s phenomenon describes it as a condition in which blood vessels in the fingers and toes narrow and the skin turns pale or white, most often set off by cold^[6]. There are two kinds: the more common primary form has no known cause; the secondary form is less common but typically more serious^[6].

And is it rare? Some health pages call Raynaud’s rare^[13]. But a 2015 review of general-population surveys put the primary form at close to 1 in 20 people, with a wide margin of uncertainty, and the studies defined it differently^[14]. So “rare” doesn’t look like the right word to me, though I wouldn’t lean on the exact number either. Fingers that change color are one of the changes in the list near the top of this post.

Can poor circulation or peripheral artery disease make you cold?

“Poor circulation” is on a lot of lists of things that cause cold hands and feet, so I wanted to know what it stands for.

One thing it can stand for is peripheral artery disease. Cleveland Clinic describes that as plaque buildup in your arteries, which “can get to the point of restricting blood flow and the delivery of oxygen to your body”^[28]. And the symptoms page from the US National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute is mostly about legs: the most common symptom it gives is pain, aching, heaviness or cramping in the legs that comes with walking or climbing stairs and goes away after rest^[31]. Cold does show up on that page, but only in one line: “One foot may feel colder than the other”^[31]. Which is a different thing from being cold all over, or from a cold sensation in both hands. And the page says about 1 in 5 people who have peripheral artery disease do not report any symptoms^[31].

Blood sugar comes into the same conversation, by way of the nerves. The US institute for diabetes says that over time high blood glucose, also called blood sugar, and high levels of fats can damage nerves and the small blood vessels that nourish them, and that people with this kind of nerve damage “may also have problems sensing pain or temperature” in their feet, legs, hands and arms^[32]. But that page doesn’t say the damage makes anyone feel cold. So I can’t tell you from these sources that blood sugar is linked to cold feet. What the page describes is trouble sensing temperature at all, which is a different problem.

Up to here it has mostly been thermostats and plumbing. The illnesses I first went looking for do turn up, though, so I’ll take them one at a time, starting with iron.

Can anemia or low iron make you cold, even if you’re not anemic?

With anemia, cold hands and feet are on an official symptom list. Without anemia, the two best-known studies point in different directions.

Start with the list. The US National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute includes “cold hands and feet” among the symptoms of iron-deficiency anemia^[5], which means low hemoglobin on a blood test because of low iron.

So what about someone whose iron is low but who isn’t anemic? Two small studies from 1990 looked at that, and both did it by cooling women down in a lab. In the first, by Beard and two colleagues, women sat in a cool water bath. Those with iron-deficiency anemia ended it slightly colder than other women, and their temperature improved once iron treatment cleared the anemia, though that was a before-and-after comparison and the abstract mentions no placebo group^[3]. And the women who had low iron stores but no anemia responded like the control women^[3].

The second study, by Lukaski and two colleagues, came at it from the other side. The researchers ran down the iron stores of 11 women without anemia and then refilled them. And while their iron was low, the women made less heat in the cold and began shivering earlier^[15].

So which is it? Well, the two studies used different designs and measured different things, and for low iron without anemia they point in different directions. And neither measured how cold anyone felt in daily life^[3][15].

A newer study gets closer to daily life. In a 2025 clinic study, about 7 in 10 of 239 women with low iron said they felt cold. But nobody without low iron was studied for comparison^[16], so there is nothing to hold that 7 in 10 up against.

What I wanted was a trial testing whether iron eases everyday coldness in women who are low in iron but not anemic. I couldn’t find one. And these women aren’t rare: in US national surveys of non-pregnant women aged 20 to 45, about 11 in 100 had low iron without anemia^[17]. So in my opinion this one is still an open question. The food side, whether spinach really is a good source, has its own post: is spinach high in iron.

Is vitamin B12 the vitamin you’re lacking if you’re always so cold?

Iron-deficiency anemia is only one type of anemia, and there are others. The one with a vitamin right there in its name is vitamin B12-deficiency anemia, which the same institute describes as a condition that develops when your body can’t make enough healthy red blood cells^[30]. Red blood cells are the cells that carry oxygen to all parts of the body^[30].

So is B12 the answer to “what vitamin am I lacking?” Not from these sources, no. Anemia in general is on the MedlinePlus list of causes^[29]. But the institute’s own symptom list for the B12 kind starts with fatigue, paleness, shortness of breath, headaches and dizziness, and feeling cold is not on it^[30]. So in my opinion “you’re cold, so it must be B12” is a bigger jump than these pages support.

Is feeling cold a symptom of an underactive thyroid (hypothyroidism)?

Yes, it’s on the list. On the US government’s page about an underactive thyroid, also called hypothyroidism, “trouble tolerating cold” is one of the common symptoms^[4]. So on that page, feeling cold is a common symptom.

Why would a thyroid do that? The same page says hypothyroidism is when the thyroid gland doesn’t make enough thyroid hormones, and that thyroid hormones control the way your body uses energy^[4]. Cleveland Clinic’s page on being always cold describes the next step: with too little thyroid hormone, “your metabolism slows down, causing more of your body processes to slow and resulting in that low body temperature”^[28].

And hypothyroidism found on blood tests isn’t rare, either. About 1 in 20 people in a large US survey had an underactive thyroid, mostly a mild kind found only on blood tests^[18] (Why am I so tired all the time? Common causes of fatigue, and what helps). Women are much more likely than men to develop it, and because it develops slowly, symptoms can go unnoticed for months or even years^[4].

So could anyone tell from one symptom alone? It seems not. A Danish study of hypothyroidism found that no single symptom, present or absent, was reliable for deciding who should be tested, and the authors said even minor suspicion should lead to a blood test^[19]. I found that reassuring: you don’t need a perfect set of symptoms before you ask.

Age belongs in this section too. An underactive thyroid is also more common after 60^[4], and a 2012 review by Blatteis says it is well recognized that older people have a lower body temperature than younger people and a more limited tolerance of extremes of heat and cold^[20]. So you’d expect older adults to report feeling cold more often. Even so, two surveys that checked age, in Iran and in Korea, found no link between age and how cold people said they felt^[26][27].

Can a low body weight make you always feel cold?

According to MedlinePlus it can, at least for some people. The page says some people, “often thin older women”, do not tolerate cold temperatures “because they have very little body fat to help keep them warm”^[29]. Anorexia nervosa is on its list of causes too^[29].

Cleveland Clinic’s page says something similar about losing fat. It quotes an internal medicine doctor, Janet Morgan: “As you age, you tend to lose fat cells that help keep you warm so you might feel colder”^[28]. And it says a new diet and exercise routine can do it too, through “burning off body fat”^[28]. So on these pages a low body weight, or losing body fat, is one of the things that can leave you feeling cold.

So by that logic, someone who has always been thin might feel a cool room before the people around them do, though neither page says it in those words. And do older people tend to feel colder? Dr. Morgan’s answer is that they may feel colder as they lose fat. But the studies I found don’t line up neatly behind either idea. In the two tiny studies earlier in this post, the women with less body fat cooled a little more in cold air, and in cool water it was the women with more body fat who reported more discomfort^[9][10]. And the Iranian survey found no link between how cold people said they felt and either their age or their body mass index^[26].

That leaves one explanation, and it’s the nicest of the lot.

Hold my coffee: Do cold hands mean a warm heart?

It’s a lovely saying, and I wanted it to hold up. A short 1998 letter in The Lancet even used “Cold hands, warm heart” as its title^[21]. But nothing I did read tests whether cool hands say anything about a person’s character.

The nearest thing I found runs the other way round, from warm hands to warm opinions. In 2008, two psychologists, Williams and Bargh, reported in Science that people who briefly held a cup of hot coffee, rather than iced coffee, judged a person described to them as “warmer”, and that people holding a hot therapeutic pad were more likely to choose a gift for a friend than for themselves^[22]. So you hand somebody a hot coffee and they see a stranger as warmer and more caring? That would be the best news a coffee shop ever got, and I really wanted it to be true.

But when other teams repeated the experiments with more people, they found near-zero or no effect^[23][24].

So as far as anyone has shown, the mug in that office is doing exactly ONE job, and it’s warming a pair of hands. (Nobody has shown that holding it makes you see other people as warmer, either. Sorry.) If being cold comes with being worn out, why am I so tired all the time looks at that side. And why do we yawn is a small mystery from the same corner of the body.

So as far as anyone has shown, the mug in that office is doing exactly ONE job, and it’s warming a pair of hands.

If you’d like to read more on this:

• Why am I so tired all the time?
• Is spinach high in iron?
• Why do we yawn?
• More from the Body page

Pass the cardigan: Quick answers about why some people feel cold all the time

Why do I feel cold while others in the same room are fine?

One possible reason is that the room is set for someone else. In many studies, women say they are more bothered by cool rooms than men^[1], and a 2023 review puts much, but not all, of the difference in how men and women respond to heat and cold down to body size and shape^[2]. For some people, iron-deficiency anemia or an underactive thyroid can be part of the picture^[3][4]. But the cold feeling on its own can’t tell you which of these is yours.

What health conditions can make you feel cold all the time?

Three conditions come up in the sources for this post: iron-deficiency anemia, an underactive thyroid and Raynaud’s phenomenon. US government health pages list “cold hands and feet” among the symptoms of iron-deficiency anemia^[5] and “trouble tolerating cold” among the common symptoms of an underactive thyroid^[4], and they describe Raynaud’s as most often set off by cold^[6]. The MedlinePlus list of things that can cause people to feel cold also has anorexia nervosa, chronic severe illness, general poor health and a problem with the hypothalamus^[29]. That is still not a full list of the possible reasons for feeling cold, and I couldn’t find a study that counts what share of people who are always cold have a medical condition behind it.

What vitamin are you lacking if you’re always cold?

Nothing I read for this post ties being always cold to a particular vitamin, so I can’t name one. What the sources do cover is iron. “Cold hands and feet” is on the US government’s symptom list for iron-deficiency anemia^[5], and for low iron without anemia the two studies I found point in different directions^[3][15]. Vitamin B12 has its own section above, and feeling cold is not on the official symptom list for the anemia it causes^[30]. Feeling cold can’t tell you what your own levels are.

How can I stop feeling cold all the time?

That depends on why you are cold, and the feeling alone doesn’t say. The cheapest place to begin is the room. Next time you start to feel cold, look around and see whether anyone else is cold too, and check the thermostat and what you’re wearing. If the room turns out to be the reason, the thermostat and an extra layer are the obvious ways to stay warm (not glamorous, I know). This post doesn’t cover treatments. And if the question is why you are colder than usual, and not why you get cold in one particular room, that is the “new or getting worse” line near the top of this post.

Why do some people get cold more easily than others?

Between men and women, a 2023 review puts much, but not all, of the difference down to body size and shape, and says the way blood vessels in the skin respond likely contributes^[2]. Sensitivity to cold is also common in surveys: depending on the country and the question, between about 10% and about 23% of adults in those surveys were counted as sensitive to cold or as having cold hands^[25][26][27]. So people who find themselves feeling cold often are a large group (so if that’s you, you have plenty of company). I found no study that says why one particular person is more likely to feel cold.

When should I see a doctor about feeling cold all the time?

If you’re worried about feeling cold, or it comes with other changes such as unusual tiredness, dry skin, thinning hair, weight gain or fingers that change color, it’s worth talking it through with your own doctor. Those changes appear on the US government’s health pages for iron-deficiency anemia, an underactive thyroid and Raynaud’s phenomenon^[5][4][6], and a doctor can check for causes this memo doesn’t cover. This post isn’t medical advice, and it can’t tell you what is behind your own cold.

Can poor circulation make me feel cold?

Blood flow in the skin helps control body temperature, and narrowing it can be part of the body’s normal response to cold. A 2003 review says local cooling of the skin “can decrease skin blood flow to minimal levels”^[11]. Raynaud’s phenomenon is a condition in which blood vessels in the fingers and toes narrow and the skin turns pale or white, most often set off by cold^[6]. The sources for this post don’t cover other circulation problems, so I can’t speak to those.

The numbers, if you want them

• Indoor temperature: women were more likely than men to be unhappy with it, a ratio of 1.74 (95% confidence interval 1.61 to 1.89)^[1].
• The 2015 letter: I could read only its free summary and not its methods, so I can’t check the 16 women myself^[7][8].
• Body fat: four women with low body fat and four with higher body fat sat in 5°C air for two hours; averaged across the measurements, core temperature dropped 0.21°C and 0.03°C^[9]. The water study was at 17°C^[10]. (So the first one is eight people, two hours and one very cold room.)
• Raynaud’s: 4.85% for the primary form (95% range 2.08% to 8.71%), pooled from five or six general-population surveys in a review of 33 articles^[14].
• Iron, 1990: after 100 minutes in 28°C water, core temperature was 36.0°C in 10 anemic women and 36.2°C in 12 controls^[3]. In the depletion study, heat made at 16°C was 49.6 against 53.6 watts per square meter^[15].
• Iron in US women: of 8,200 non-pregnant women, 17.3% had iron deficiency (ferritin below 15 micrograms per liter), 9.8% anemia and 6.2% both, which leaves about 11% with low iron alone^[17]. The clinic used a cut-off of 30^[16].
• Feeling cold in general: 9.7% of men and 14.4% of women in northern Sweden reported cold sensitivity (35.9% replied)^[25]; 38 of 322 adults in Tabriz, Iran, scored as cold-intolerant^[26]; 21.6% of 2,201 Korean adults rated their hands as cold^[27].
• Warm coffee: the 2008 experiments had 41 and 53 people; the 2019 repeats had 128 and 177^[23]; three 2014 repeats of the pad experiment had 861 in all^[24].
• The Lancet letter: I couldn’t get hold of its text, so its title is all I can tell you about it^[21].
• What I looked for and couldn’t find (searched October 2026): a trial testing whether iron eases everyday coldness in women who are low in iron but not anemic, and a study that counts what share of always-cold people have a medical cause.

Why am I always cold? One small thing to check today (besides how to stay warm)

Back to the two desks, and the question of who’s right. My answer is that it’s the wrong contest. Nothing I read suggests anyone in that room is being fussy or imagining it.

What the reading can’t do is sort you into a cause. None of these numbers says what share of people who feel cold all the time have a medical cause, and I couldn’t find a study that counts that. So start with the cheapest explanation, the room, and ask whether anyone else is cold too.

So the next time you feel chilly today and reach for a sweater, look around for ten seconds. If you’re alone at home or on a quiet night shift, check the thermostat and what you’re wearing instead. Then jot one line on your phone: the time, the room, and whether anyone else seemed cold. If a note feels like too much, the look around is enough for today. Cleveland Clinic suggests a similar check against the people around you^[28]. Keep it up for a week if you like, and if you ever take them to someone, you’ll have something to show them.

---

Sources

1. Karjalainen, S. (2012). Thermal comfort and gender: a literature review. Indoor Air, 22(2), 96-109. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1600-0668.2011.00747.x
2. Greenfield, A. M., Alba, B. K., Giersch, G. E. W., & Seeley, A. D. (2023). Sex differences in thermal sensitivity and perception: implications for behavioral and autonomic thermoregulation. Physiology & Behavior, 263, 114126. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.physbeh.2023.114126
3. Beard, J. L., Borel, M. J., & Derr, J. (1990). Impaired thermoregulation and thyroid function in iron-deficiency anemia. American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, 52(5), 813-819. https://doi.org/10.1093/ajcn/52.5.813
4. National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases. Hypothyroidism (Underactive Thyroid) (last reviewed March 2021). https://www.niddk.nih.gov/health-information/endocrine-diseases/hypothyroidism
5. National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute. Iron-Deficiency Anemia (last updated 24 March 2022). https://www.nhlbi.nih.gov/health/anemia/iron-deficiency-anemia
6. National Institute of Arthritis and Musculoskeletal and Skin Diseases. Raynaud’s Phenomenon (last reviewed July 2024). https://www.niams.nih.gov/health-topics/raynauds-phenomenon
7. Kingma, B., & van Marken Lichtenbelt, W. (2015). Energy consumption in buildings and female thermal demand. Nature Climate Change, 5(12), 1054-1056. https://doi.org/10.1038/nclimate2741 (a letter; the free text is the abstract only)
8. Building Design + Construction (2015, 6 August). Difference in male-female thermal comfort is due to clothing, ASHRAE says. https://www.bdcnetwork.com/codes-and-standards/article/55148034/difference-in-male-female-thermal-comfort-is-due-to-clothing-ashrae-says
9. Glickman-Weiss, E. L., Hearon, C. M., Prisby, R. D., & Caine, N. (1998). The perceptual and physiological responses of high and low fat women exposed to 5 degrees C air for 120 minutes. Wilderness & Environmental Medicine, 9(4), 204-210. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/11990192/
10. Prisby, R. D., Glickman-Weiss, E. L., & Caine, N. (2000). Thermal sensation and substrate utilization differs among low- and high-fat women exposed to 17 degrees C water. Wilderness & Environmental Medicine, 11(3), 157-162. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/11055560/
11. Charkoudian, N. (2003). Skin blood flow in adult human thermoregulation: how it works, when it does not, and why. Mayo Clinic Proceedings, 78(5), 603-612. https://doi.org/10.4065/78.5.603
12. Savastano, D. M., Gorbach, A. M., Eden, H. S., Brady, S. M., Reynolds, J. C., & Yanovski, J. A. (2009). Adiposity and human regional body temperature. American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, 90(5), 1124-1131. https://doi.org/10.3945/ajcn.2009.27567
13. Healthline. Feel Cold All the Time? Here’s Why, and How to Warm Up (page title: Why Do I Always Feel Cold?). Read 30 October 2026. https://www.healthline.com/health/always-cold
14. Garner, R., Kumari, R., Lanyon, P., Doherty, M., & Zhang, W. (2015). Prevalence, risk factors and associations of primary Raynaud’s phenomenon: systematic review and meta-analysis of observational studies. BMJ Open, 5(3), e006389. https://doi.org/10.1136/bmjopen-2014-006389
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