We have established that the continuous cold exposure (CCE, 4°C, 4 weeks) causes cold adaptation, increases systolic blood pressure, exerts infarct-limiting effect during coronary artery occlusion (45 min) and reperfusion (2 h). The CCE increases adrenal weight, heart weight and triiodothyronine (T 3 ) level but does not change thymus, spleen weight, serum cortisol, corticosterone and thyroxin (T 4 ) levels. The long-term (4°C, 8 h/day, 4 weeks) intermittent cold exposure (LICE) induces adaptation to the cold and increases T 4 level. The brief (4°C, 1.5 h/day, 4 weeks) intermittent cold exposure (BICE) also evokes adaptation to the cold but had no effect on the blood pressure, the cardiac tolerance to ischemia/reperfusion, and does not change thymus, spleen weight, serum cortisol, corticosterone, T 3 and T 4 levels.