Cold thermogenesis is essentially the process of strategic cold exposure for a sustained amount of time to lower one’s body temperature on a regular basis. Why in the world would you want to do this? Same reason it turns out fasting is one of the most important things you can do for your health. Your body was built for it.
Whether you believe that we evolved in this world or were created with it, it makes a lot of sense that your body would be engineered to not only withstand but thrive with exposure to extreme temperatures. If you’re doing an infrared sauna on a regular basis, good, but that’s only half the battle.
Cold Thermogenesis Activates the Hormone Adinopectin
Adinopectin is a hormone that helps the body break down fat and also brings sugar from the blood into the muscles which can lower blood sugar (more on blood sugar below).
Most importantly, low levels of this hormone are consistently found in those with cancer, whereas high levels have been associated with cancer prevention. The same is true for obesity, diabetes, and cardiovascular disease.
Cold Thermogenesis Exposure can Burn Fat and lower Blood Sugar
Brown adipose tissue (BAT) is a brown fat found in the highest concentrations in babies and people who are often exposed to cold. Both of which really need to be able to warm themselves up in a hurry. Brown fat is found primarily in the upper back, neck, collar bones, and sternum.
The interesting thing about BAT, is that it can burn the normal white fat found in your stomach, thighs, hips, and butt directly, and itself, without needing to exhaust glucose and glycogen first for the body to begin using fat as a fuel source. The more cold you’re exposed to, the more active your BAT becomes.
BAT has been shown to uptake blood glucose to be burned quickly as much as 12 fold during cold exposure. So in essence, your body turns into a raging sugar and fat burning machine.
High blood glucose has been directly correlated with increased tumor malignancy. The more glucose your healthy cells can burn and get out of the bloodstream, the less that is available for cancer cells to ferment, which along with glutamine fermentation is their primary energy source.
Healthy cells have much more metabolic flexibility than cancer cells and are able to switch back and forth from using glucose and fat for energy. The problem is, that mechanism is largely busted for lack of a better term in individuals today due to lack of healthy fats in the diet and an abundance of unhealthy sugars.
The more we can jumpstart our metabolism with things like cold exposure, fasting, and high (healthy) fat diets, the more metabolically flexible our cells become. Healthy cells will survive these forced adaptations, the dysfunctional cancer cells will not.
Cold Thermogenesis Exposure can Trigger Autophagy
Autophagy is a very, very important mechanism for cancer prevention and inhibition along with overall health, and cold exposure has been shown to really kick start this process.
Two explanations of autophagy Dr. Mercola compiled in his article on the process are as follows:
As explained in layman’s terms by Greatist:
“Your cells create membranes that hunt out scraps of dead, diseased, or worn-out cells; gobble them up; strip ’em for parts; and use the resulting molecules for energy or to make new cell parts.”
Dr. Colin Champ, a board-certified radiation oncologist and assistant professor at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center explains it thus:
“Think of it as our body’s innate recycling program. Autophagy makes us more efficient machines to get rid of faulty parts, stop cancerous growths, and stop metabolic dysfunction like obesity and diabetes.”
Cold Thermogenesis Exposure Boosts the Immune System
At the end of the day, it’s our body’s immune system that will ultimately heal cancer and keep us cancer free. Cold exposure has been proven to increase the count and activity of natural killer cells, and raise circulating levels of interleukin 6, along with inducing leukocytosis and granulocytosis, all of which makes for hearty and robust immune system!!
Get More Cold Thermogenesis in Your Life!!
Want massive energy boosts and to walk around feeling like a tough guy (or gal) all day all while fighting cancer?? Ask yourself what you can do to increase your cold exposure on a consistent basis.
I typically start the day either with a straight up cold shower (VERY cold in the middle of Park City winter!!) for as long as I can go or a contrast shower alternating between ten seconds of hot and twenty seconds of cold, capped off with two minutes straight of cold at the end. And yes, Ryder gets to “enjoy” these as well after our nightly infrared sauna session. One of the many factors contributing to this whole experience making him one tough dude. See video below.
After you’ve mastered the cold shower you can graduate to ice baths and also look for any cryotherapy (whole body cooling chamber) facilities in your area. Ice vests are also a practical way to get sustained cooling. The Cool Fat Burner in particular has the most research around it proving increased metabolism, BAT activity, and adiponectin levels. It’s very high on our gadgets wish list. Or there’s the free version of simply stripping down outside on a cold day (as displayed in this video…) and/or experimenting with keeping the heat off or very low inside the house!
https://youtu.be/waq29e9wikY
Sources Used for this Article:
https://www.hindawi.com/journals/isrn/2012/982769/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4677694/
http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2016/07/27/elevated-blood-sugar.aspx
https://bengreenfieldfitness.com/2012/09/burning-more-fat-with-cold/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/12436346
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19303978
http://jap.physiology.org/content/87/2/699.full
http://fitness.mercola.com/sites/fitness/archive/2016/03/11/autophagy.aspx
http://www.cell.com/cell-metabolism/abstract/S1550-4131(15)00524-0
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22269323
