For the stars, major sports athletes and the exercise enthusiasts, one of the newer trends is cryotherapy. In short, it involves immersing oneself in extreme cold after an intense workout. The intense variety is a liquid nitrogen vapor chamber with the head outside and the body exposed to minus 292 degrees Fahrenheit for at the most three minutes. It is supposed to prevent inflammation and promote faster recovery from intense physical activity. The main focus of treatment is for athletes, but there have been claims that it helps a number of conditions like Multiple Sclerosis, Rheumatoid Arthritis, migraines, fibromyalgia, Alzheimer’s, chronic pain and anxiety.

Cooling, ice and cryotherapy work on the premise of decreasing inflammation throughout the body. Cryotherapy is an inexpensive treatment, probably costing about $15 per session, but that can add up quickly if you do it after every workout. During a workout, the body produces increased waste products of metabolism. In general, these do not necessarily cause pain and inflammation. In fact, after a workout, one may want to flush the waste products out of the body versus rapidly cooling down the body and decreasing the body’s elimination of any of these waste products. Furthermore there is absolutely no scientific evidence to prove that cryotherapy works or helps athletes or any of the above illnesses.

Simpler is Often Better

Local inflammation can be helped with icing in the initial phase during the first 24 to 48 hours. An ice pack is an inexpensive and simple way to decrease blood flow to an area and diminish inflammation. After the first 48 hours, heat is helpful to increase blood flow and get rid of any inflammatory products left over. Throughout that time, adequate hydration of the body is needed so the natural processes can eliminate waste products versus accumulating locally and causing pain.

Fads for health often are merely just hype. Many are costly, and most have little to no scientific basis to be helpful. Whole body cooling for instance, if not done extremely carefully, can easily stress the heart and cause frostbite burns. Further, it may cause vessel constriction and prevent the body from eliminating waste products produced with exercise. Most fads are often an exaggeration of practical strategies for a problem. Changing hydration with drinking a sport’s drink to getting intravenous hydration with vitamins after athletic events, or slowing down and breathing deeply after a race compared to wearing an oxygen mask and breathing pure oxygen gas are both examples of this. There really is no science behind any of these trends and mostly are targeted at high profile individuals who are then emulated by others.

As far as cryotherapy goes, it surfaced a couple of years ago and the science is still not present. In 2016, the Food and Drug Administration actually posted a statement saying there is no evidence of any of the claims of helping athletes or curing diseases. Maybe the best advice the old KISS principle, keep it simple stupid, and try the ice pack when needed.