Wearing an ice vest or taking daily cold showers could help people lose weight, according to researchers. A study of 47 adults with obesity or overweight found that regular exposure to cold temperatures led to fat loss.
Researchers at the University of Nottingham and the Leiden University Medical Center (LUMC) in the Netherlands gave half the participants an ice vest and waist wrap to wear for two hours every morning, while continuing their daily lives. The vests and waist wrap were worn on top of a thin T-shirt and contained gel-filled cooling packs that had been kept overnight in the freezer and maintained a temperature of 15C.
In six weeks, participants lost 0.9kg (2lb), made up almost entirely of body fat, whereas the control group did not lose any weight and put on 0.6kg (1.3lb) on average. The lead researcher, Dr Mariëtte Boon, of LUMC, said: 'This is one of the first studies looking at the impact of cold exposure over a prolonged period of time, involving people with overweight and obesity.'
Prof Helen Budge, at the University of Nottingham and co-author of the study, said: 'Daily cold exposure activates brown fat, which uses body fat stores to produce heat. It is possible that wearing a cooling vest trains brown fat to be more active and has a healthy effect on lipids, glucose and inflammation in the body.'
The researchers are conducting a separate study of 34 women in the Netherlands to see if cold showers also promote fat loss. Half of the women will have their shower on the coldest setting for 90 seconds every morning. 'It is our hypothesis that cold showers and cold swimming could have the same effect,' Budge said, though she cautioned that cold swimming involves 'cold shock' and other effects.
