Is Deep-Freezing Your Body Healthy—Or Harmful? Inside the FDA’s New Warning on Cryotherapy

As the mercury climbs, the idea of cooling your heels inside the corner restaurant’s walk-in freezer seems tempting. And as it turns out, wellness seekers are effectively doing just that to treat a range of serious maladies, from arthritis to multiple sclerosis to migraines. Whole-body cryotherapy (WBC) tanks expose users to vapors as low as minus 300 degrees Fahrenheit for two to four minutes at a time. And while they may sound like something out of the future (Gwyneth Paltrow recently said she’d like to try them), they’re cropping up at wellness centers across the country. Standing tanks—think of them as high-tech ice baths—hold one person whose torso and legs are exposed to ultra-low temperature vapors, while group chambers, for several people at a time, surround the entire body with frigid temperatures generated by liquid nitrogen. The extreme cold lowers tissue temperature, which can result in dampened pain, reduced inflammation, and increased blood flow. Some advocates seek the supposed benefits of skin toning and cellulite reduction; others even credit cryotherapy for aiding in weight loss and alleviating anxiety and depression.

However, clinical studies are still in the works, and scientific trials focused on ice therapy have done little to substantiate the restorative claims of devotees. This, together with the treatment’s recent explosion in popularity—Olympians, including sprinter Allyson Felix, have tweeted about it—prompted the FDA to issue a rare pre-emptive statement this week noting that no WBC device has actually been approved as a safe and effective treatment for medical conditions. In fact, according to Einar Ottestad, M.D., clinical assistant professor at Stanford University Medical Center’s Systems Neuroscience and Pain Laboratory, “there is no good evidence to show that anything resembling healing occurs” in these tanks. Ottestad says he uses targeted freezing techniques like cryoablation and cryoanalgesia to treat and kill cancer cells and specific painful nerves, but dismisses claims that whole-body chambers can cure what he calls “otherwise chronic and difficult to treat diseases.”

And, not only do cryotherapy’s healing benefits remain unproven, but as the FDA statement points out, there are numerous potential hazards to the practice. Stepping into a frigid tank may seem as benign as getting a facial, but dangers include asphyxiation (one spa worker died while giving herself a session in a chamber late last year, a result of low oxygen levels in the space), frostbite, and burns—effects that have even cropped up among the professional athletes who helped to popularize the treatment. (In 2011, sprinter Justin Gatlin showed reporters frostbite blisters on his heels that formed after wearing wet socks into a WBC chamber.) What’s more, the FDA warns that patients who opt for WBC over more established treatments for their maladies could actually stall improvements or even worsen their current conditions. The takeaway? For now, WBC’s otherworldly possibilities may remain just that.

 

The post Is Deep-Freezing Your Body Healthy—Or Harmful? Inside the FDA’s New Warning on Cryotherapy appeared first on Vogue.