Cold therapy, hacking aging for longevity

 

 Is Cold Therapy Beneficial for Anti-Aging and Longevity?

Does cold therapy lengthen life?
Can taking a cold bath, shower, or plunge make you look and feel younger?
From the stoic philosopher Seneca to Thomas Jefferson to contemporary celebrities, important figures have long expressed why they cherished cold water plunges. It has long been believed that cold water treatment enhances health. 

Yet how?

When our body is under stress, it must adapt in order to respond.
We all know that exercise is good for us, but if we exercised for five hours every day, it wouldn't be that good.
If you have a glass of wine one night, you'll feel fine and even benefit from the health benefits, but if you have two bottles every night, it's not so beneficial.
We experience the same reaction and adaptation when we subject ourselves to cold therapy. 

In an effort to keep our heart and other essential organs warm so they can continue to work, as soon as our body senses the cold, our muscles tense up and blood travels away from the limbs.
Our insulin levels fall, our blood pressure and heart rate rise, and our blood sugar levels rise.
In a short time, everything will be OK.

We get certain cold shock proteins as a result of receiving cold therapy.
Despite the fact that several cold shock proteins have been investigated, they essentially enhance the health of our RNA and DNA.
Increases in cold shock proteins have shown anti-aging advantages in mice on a calorie-restricted diet.
In particular, cold shock proteins control the main inflammatory pathway NF-kB and the enzyme p53, which is responsible for uncontrolled cell death.

Brown fat, what about it?

Our bodies contain both brown and white fat.
The fat we are all familiar with is called white fat, and brown fat helps to increase body warmth.
Sadly, as we become older, our brown fat levels decline.
However, we can lower our risk of having high cholesterol, atherosclerosis, and high triglyceride levels by activating the little brown fat that we do have.
Some people believe that exposure to cold will enhance metabolism because brown fat is activated by cold.

Are there any longevity advantages to cold therapy?

This is the tricky part.
In fruit flies and mice, cold therapy has been shown to increase longevity.
Muscle recovery is where the best human cold therapy data are found.
Cold therapy is known to alleviate localized inflammation, discomfort, and muscular spasms while also appearing to boost metabolic activity.

According to a study on swimmers, swimming four times a week helped with anxiety, exhaustion, mood, and memory.
Although I'm not sure who does it, a one-hour immersion appears to have longevity advantages, including lowering the stress hormone cortisol.

The conclusion may be that cold therapy on a frequent basis results in a lower body temperature, which has more health advantages.

We do have a variety of ways to receive cold therapy.
I take a contrast shower (hot and cold water alternately) every day and a cold shower every morning.
Ice baths can be taken, or you can try the Wim Hof method of leaping into an ice bucket outside.


Whatever method you use to carry out your cold therapy, remember that it is only one element of the puzzle.