The Detection of Heat Stress by Assessing individual Body Responses to Heat (Heat Strain) in Young and Healthy Non-athlete Participants

Heat stress can reduce work performance and increases the risk for work related injuries. An in-depth understanding of the molecular heat strain signature in sweat for an extended personalized molecular monitoring is lacking. The HEATSTAR project is, to the best of our knowledge, the first project to use a personalized study setting to assess the molecular signature of proteomics and metabolomics in sweat during moderate heat stress. It was investigated if biomarker candidates can be identified that allow us to differentiate between various heat stressors. For this, we conducted a personalized, cross-sectional, crossover pilot trial with randomized study visits. Healthy non-athlete participants aged 18-40 were included and four different types of heat stressors applied. The local sweat rate through technical absorbents, the whole body sweat rate, and sweat’s metabolomic as well as proteomic molecular composition were assessed.