What is the lowest and highest temperatures humans can survive under?

Answer 1

It depends on, among other things, the length of time, the medium the human is in, what they are wearing, and their conditioning.

Being in cold temperature air with proper shelter and clothing, humans can survive indefinatley, even if the temperature is below zero degrees. But a person in regular clothing immersed in water just above freezing will last only a few minutes.

As for heat: A sauna can reach temperatures of close to 200 degrees, but since the air is around 10% humidity, it actually feels comfortable and has many healing properties. But if the air is 90% humidity, then the safe temperature is more like around 110 degrees.

So maybe a better question to ask is: At what temperature and humididty combinations are humans capable of surviving?

The question must be more specific because are we talking about external temps or internal. A bodies internal temp can only survive up to 108F it starts to die around 105F which is when the proteins inside the body begin to cook apart. As far as the coldest the human body can get is in the 70'sF and potentially lower depending on the time spent at the temp. The body getting cold is much safer than the body getting to warm.

The reason humans function worse and worse in the heat the more moisture there is is our body's main way of cooling off is sweating. If there is a high amount of moisture in the air our sweat can't evaporate and our bodies can't cool down.

I'm not sure but I believe once an external temperature above 212 degrees is reached a human will begin to die because of their internal fluids simply starting to boil, remember we are 70-90% water..

The coldest temperature your body can get before shutting down and going into hypothermic shock is 89 degrees. I believe that below 83 is unsurviveable and all organ failure, including brain.

I would imagine that the entire internal body temperature would have to be 212 degrees in order for it to boil. Look at what happens when you throw a turkey in the oven at 400 degrees for x amount of time, it takes quite a while to reach 160 degrees, well below boiling.

Answer 2

The NZ Resuscitation Council give the following, unreferenced, figures: "32C - Altered mental state; 28C - Hypotension, decreasing consciousness; 27C - Shivering ceases; 24C - Asystole, coma; 20-26C - Respirations cease; 13C - lowest recorded Survivor from accidental hypothermia; 9C - lowest recorded survivor from controlled hypothermia. 40C - Severe neurological disturbance may occur and may be permanent. " Wikipedia states, also lacking reference, that "Brain Death" starts at 45C and immediate death at 50C. In my opinion: The survival range is further on the cold rather than hot side, probably related to the decreased demands of tissues as they cool and conversely increased production of toxins and increased demands of tissues at higher temperatures. It may also be that the treatment of hypothermia may generally be 'mechanical' in response to 'mechanical', environmental, factors causing hypothermia; whereas hyperthermia may be related to environmental factors, but may often be related to underlying disease or effects of toxins which are more complex to correct.

Answer 3

7 degrees while just wearing a normal coat