05. February 2024
Ice bathing - what's the point?
Prof. Dr Stephan Gadola, Head of Rheumatology & Pain Medicine at Bethesda Hospital, explains this in the Basler Zeitung.
Winter swimming is all the rage. But why do people do it? Stepping into water that is below 15 degrees - the Rhine is currently 6.3 degrees - means pure stress for the body.
Nevertheless, ice bathing is said to have many positive health effects, such as helping you lose weight, improving your immune defences and helping you sleep better. "I always have a strong feeling of happiness afterwards and am full of energy," says Basel winter swimmer Claire Foltzer.
But which of these effects have actually been scientifically proven? Stephan Gadola, Head of the Rheumatology and Pain Medicine Clinic at Bethesda Hospital in Basel, has analysed the current study situation and classifies it.
Weight loss
You can lose weight with regular ice bathing. Our brown adipose tissue is responsible for this. When brown adipose tissue is activated by cold, body fat is burned. The effect has already been seen in test subjects when they were exposed to a temperature of 17 degrees for two hours a day for six weeks. Regular ice bathing also leads to higher insulin sensitivity, which improves the metabolism in diabetics.
However, people who are exposed to the cold for longer periods of time may compensate for this by eating more.
Cancer cells
Cold therapy can slow down the growth of various types of tumours, at least in mice. These include untreatable types of cancer such as pancreatic cancer. If the brown fatty tissue was removed, the tumours continued to grow unchecked. According to Gadola, a deeper understanding of how cold triggers this effect on brown adipose tissue could actually lead to new tumour therapies in the future.
Immune system
An increase in various immune cells in the blood and in certain immune proteins was detected in regular winter swimmers. However, other cells and proteins important for the immune system remained unchanged.
Cold water swimmers seem to catch colds less often. At least that is the conclusion that can be drawn from a clinical study that compared ice swimmers with their life partners. However, pool swimmers showed the same result. "This may indicate that even a lower cooling of the body temperature strengthens the immune system," says Gadola.
Sleep quality and regeneration
Cold water bathing actually reduces recovery time after exercise and "is associated with increased sprint speed 24 hours after exercise," says Gadola.
After well-trained endurance runners had immersed their entire body in cold water after training, they woke up less often during the night and also moved their arms and legs less during sleep. At the same time, the proportion of deep sleep in the first part of the night increased.
If improved sleep quality is confirmed in better-controlled studies, Stephan Gadola believes this could be of great importance for various diseases, such as chronic pain syndromes: "Because so far there is no medication that can demonstrably improve deep sleep."
Mental health
Winter swimming has been proven to release stress hormones. This explains the euphoria described by many ice swimmers immediately after the swim.
Longer-term effects could also be possible: "In small case studies, regular ice swimming had a dramatically positive effect on depression. These interesting observations deserve larger-scale studies," says Stephan Gadola.
Improved sleep quality (see previous point) would result in more energy, stress and anxiety reduction, a higher pain threshold, positive mood and improved mental clarity.
A promising positive effect of activated brown adipose tissue on the psyche is also currently being discussed. Brown adipose tissue has an important function for the day-night rhythm and the nervous system. The activation of brown adipose tissue through regular winter swimming could therefore have a stabilising effect on mental and emotional resilience.
Pain and inflammation
Cold helps with inflammation and certain pains. Ice bathing causes the blood vessels to constrict. This prevents the influx of inflammatory cells. The slowed nerve conduction reduces the pain stimuli. This is why cool packs are applied to a sprained ankle, for example.
Ice bathing is also said to have positive effects on chronic pain such as fibromyalgia. So far, however, this is only based on experience without scientific proof.
Cardiovascular system
Regular cold water swimming reduces a number of cardiovascular risk factors, such as cholesterol and blood pressure. However, some swimmers were also found to have elevated blood levels of troponin - which is an indication of heart muscle damage.
"People with an increased cardiovascular risk should exercise great caution when ice swimming," says Gadola. In general, he advises everyone to only approach ice bathing gradually, with caution and in guided groups.
Conclusion
"Ice swimming does things to the body that are quite interesting," says Stephan Gadola. At the moment, however, he would not recommend winter swimming as a therapy, as no standards have yet been set for its use: "Depending on age, state of health, body size and composition, experience with ice bathing, water temperature, bathing time and movement in the water, ice bathing can have a beneficial or detrimental effect on health."
Tips from an experienced winter swimmer: What you need to watch out for.
- Never go alone at the beginning. You never know how your body will react to the cold water.
- look for a safe place where it is easy to get in and out of the water. Ideally, you should also be able to stand in the water.
- do not jump into the water, but go in slowly and carefully.
- do not go into a river at high tide.
- the following applies to inexperienced ice bathers: only stay in the water for as many minutes as the water temperature (e.g. six minutes at six degrees).
- extremities cool down more quickly: Some people therefore use neoprene socks and gloves.
- for afterwards: A second towel for under your feet, warm clothes and gloves.
Los emol - Podcast of the Basler Zeitung with Dr Stephan Gadola
Are cold-water swimmers really fitter, healthier and mentally stronger? In addition to the article, Stephan Gadola, Head Physician at the Rheumatology and Pain Medicine Clinic at Bethesda Hospital in Basel, and Annick Steinegger, Basel ice swimmer and mental trainer, talk about what winter swimming can really do - and what it can't - in the BaZ podcast "Los emol".
