Effects of the air temperature on immunoglobulin concentrations of healthy people

Abstract

The air temperature was critical to human health, especially for the mucosal immunity of the respiratory system. Amongst a few biomarkers, immunoglobulin was an effective material to evaluate respiratory health. In order to explore the effects of the natural air temperature on serum immunoglobulin concentrations of people, an epidemiological investigation was conducted between Jan 2018 and Dec 2019. In addition, an experiment was conducted to find the relationship between indoor air temperature and salivary immunoglobulin E (IgE) concentration, under the built environment within the comfort zone of people. Results of the epidemiological investigation showed that the serum IgE concentration was the most sensitive to temperature and was positively correlated with outdoor environmental temperature ( p < 0.001, Spearman = 0.509). In addition, the experimental results showed that the salivary IgE concentration was also positively correlated with indoor temperature ( p = 0.009, Spearman = 0.495), and it rose significantly with the increase of thermal comfort votes ( p = 0.022, Spearman = 0.508). In a comfortable temperature range, keeping a higher air temperature can increase the concentration of IgE antibodies, which is one of the ways to improve the mucosal immunity of the respiratory system.