By Shant Karnikian
Fit and ageless actors like Daniel Craig, Jennifer Aniston, Tom Cruise, and Demi Moore use it. So do star athletes from LeBron James and Steph Curry to Serena Williams, Cristiano Ronaldo, and Usain Bolt.
Cryotherapy, or cold therapy—specifically Whole Body Cryotherapy (WBC)—is a trending “wellness hack,” says WebMD. Fans of the practice say it’s physically and mentally invigorating, enhances athletic performance and muscle recovery, and helps them look youthful.
WBC involves short-term exposure to extremely cold temperatures, typically in a chamber cooled by electricity or liquid nitrogen. Electrically cooled chambers can reach -155°F, while those cooled with nitrogen can bottom out at a truly chilling -230°F.
What happens when you step into a cryotherapy chamber? During a 2- to 3-minute blast of arctic air, peripheral blood vessels constrict and blood rushes to the internal organs; upon exiting, blood quickly returns to extremities and skin.
“Cold therapy is thought to stimulate your sympathetic nervous system, your body’s fight or flight response, causing a release of noradrenaline, a neurotransmitter and hormone that’s been shown to reduce pain signals in studies done on animals,” WebMD explains.
The potential benefits of cryotherapy are vast and exciting: it may decrease inflammation, pain, and swelling, accelerate tissue repair, improve sleep, boost collagen production, and lift your spirits. In specific populations, cryotherapy has also been linked to weight loss.
It’s important to realize though, that “cryotherapy” is a broad term, encompassing many types of treaments that involve applying extreme cold to the body—they’re not all the same and do not all have the same research backing.
The use of various types of cryotherapy can be traced back to ancient Greece, Rome, and Persia. Professional athletes have long used versions of cold therapy, such as ice baths, to boost healing and recovery. Members of the Polar Bear Club, who take frigid winter swims in lakes and oceans, are potentially reaping health benefits. If you’ve ever put an ice pack on a pulled muscle, you’ve done “local cryotherapy (LC)”
Certain forms of medical cryotherapy have been well-established through clinical trials and are FDA-approved for use by medical professionals. Studies of medically applied WBC have found that it can help relieve pain and increase mobility for people with conditions like rheumatoid arthritis, chronic low back pain, and multiple sclerosis. But so far, WBC has not earned FDA approval for athletic recovery or treatment of any medical condition. And the Mayo clinic warns that research into WBC is “still in its infancy.”
As WebMD notes, while cryotherapy in your doctor’s office for something like wart removal is common, “whole-body cryotherapy for physical or mental wellness is not well researched.”
With influencers touting its benefits, cryotherapy chambers have moved beyond professional athletic facilities and are cropping up in local gyms and spas, as well as fancy wellness resorts. College and even high school athletic teams now go for cryotherapy sessions as part of training.
But is it safe?
Commercial cryotherapy facilities tout amazing benefits, but those claims are not always supported by scientific research—at least not yet.
Because research is still underway, and it’s still unclear how WBC may benefit the body, the Mayo Clinic cautions that popular, non-medical forms of cryotherapy may have risks or “negative effects that aren’t known yet.” Because cryotherapy chambers at gyms and wellness spas are largely unregulated, it is important to understand the risks before trying it.
Risks may include:
- Frostbite
- Panniculitis – inflammation and painful bumps in fatty tissue beneath the skin (after prolonged exposure)
- Cold urticaria – hives
- Nerve damage
- Bradycardia – slowed heart rate
- Reduced muscle function
You should NOT use a cryotherapy chamber if you are pregnant, have certain cardiovascular conditions, nerve damage, any open wounds, peripheral numbness, or a known allergy to cold.
There are also risks associated with the facilities themselves. Nitrogen-cooled chambers present a suffocation or hypoxia danger if nitrogen has partially replaced oxygen. In 2018, the European Industrial Gases Association, a safety watchdog, warned that liquid and gas nitrogen (which are colorless and odorless) in cryotherapy chambers carried risks including “oxygen depletion and potential asphyxiation.”
Indeed, last month, two women, ages 29 and 34, collapsed while using a cold chamber in Paris due to a nitrogen leak that had previously been reported.
In 2019, a 71-year-old male suffered a severe “cold burn” when a nozzle malfunctioned in a cryotherapy chamber and liquid nitrogen sprayed directly onto his skin for nearly a minute.
A 24-year-old woman froze to death in a cryotherapy chamber at a Las Vegas spa in 2015. Unmonitored, she was not discovered until the following day.
Two Missouri State basketball players sustained injuries to their feet (numbness and blistering) during a cryotherapy session arranged by their athletic trainer at a privately owned gym in 2018.
You should be properly screened beforehand, and there must always be a qualified attendant monitoring the session. Physical protection is also key, such as “gloves, a woolen headband covering the ears, a nose and mouth mask, and dry shoes and socks to reduce the risk of cold-related injury,” says the Mayo Clinic.
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