Weight Loss: Hot and Cold Therapy – A Tale of Ice and Fire
Traditional medicine cultures around the world have for centuries touted the health benefits of hot and cold exposure therapies. Recently modern medicine has caught up with these traditional practices and provides us with new understandings on the cellular mechanisms of action of these therapies.
Gradually heating your body up is what the immune system does during a fever because it is what optimizes the immune system while your body is fighting an infection. Artificially bumping up the temperature also helps improve immune function through the induction of heat shock proteins.
Cold plunges have been used for centuries as well as a way of strengthening the body’s stress response and decreasing inflammation. New research into how cold induces cold shock proteins also show that it can reduce brain specific inflammation and could prevent early onset dementia.
Cold Shock Proteins
Ice Cold Showers | Ice Baths | Cryotherapy
- Decrease brain inflammation
- Reduce oxidative stress and protect against free radicals
- Speed in muscle recovery
- Trigger DNA repait
- Apart from inducing CSP cold also helps induce fat loss
- Cold also helps boost testosterone and sperm quality in men
Hot Shock Proteins
Infrared Sauna | Traditional Sauna | Steam | Exercise | Hot Baths
- Repair of mis-folded and damaged proteins
- Improve the immune response
- Reduce inflammation
- Induce vascular relaxation
- Increase insulin sensitivity
- Faster muscle recovery
Consult your doctor first before starting any new health regiments as these therapies are powerful and need to be introduced gradually. Sudden shocks of hot or cold to the body can be dangerous.
