Cryotherapy: the use of cold for medical treatment. While cryotherapy is mostly seen in settings such as surgical centers and rehabilitation clinics, there are places out there using cryotherapy to help customers burn away fat. But is cryotherapy really effective, or is this all a gimic? Can you really freeze off fat?

Good vs Bad Fats

The body has many different kinds of fat, particularly white fat and brown fat. White fat holds energy, therefore it is not metabolically active. Brown fat is metabolically active and is the fat that keeps humans warm when it is cold outside. Reserach believes that cryotherapy can help turn white fats into brown fats, or bad fats into good fats.

Shivering and how it burns fat.

Obviously, being in a cold environment causes the human body to shiver. The human body shivers to help keep warm. There are two different ways that the body responds to cold: shivering thermogenesis and non-shivering thermogenesis. Shivering thermogenesis is involuntary, and the production of heat is the result of this. As the body is trying to warm up, the body is burning calories. Supposedly the shivering has similar effects of cardiovascular exercise. The second way a body responds to cold is non-shivering thermogenesis. This is a more promising way to lose weight, and the way that cyrotherapy is beneficial in losing weight.

So, how do you freeze off fat?

Non-shivering thermogenesis is regulated by norepinepherine, which is a hormone and a neurotransmitter in the human body. According to studies, cold can help increase the release of norepinepherine. Norepinepherine, when cold, releases mitochondria. The more mitochondria released into adipose tissue, the more the white fat cells will slowly turn into brown fat cells, also known as the good fat cells.

What is the cryotherapy process?

The new trend is causing cryotherapy centers to open up all around the nation. Customers will enter a cryotherapy chamber where they will be standing in a temperature of 30-45 degrees for about 2.5 minutes. At some clinics they will measure the skin temperature to see what treatment is best for the customer the next time they come for a visit.

What do the experts recommend?

There have been a few deaths related to cryotherapy treatment, as well as some customers complaining of recieveing frostbite. Experts see the benefits of cryotherapy chambers when it comes to athlete's recovering from conditioning. However, when it comes to burning fat, there is very little evidence that supports this.

While cryotherapy is the new trend that is sweeping the nation, how reliable and effective do you think this treatment is? Do you believe that this "freeze fat" therapy is a gimic?