Can Cold Temps Help You Lose Weight and Live Longer?

The coolest trend in weight loss right now: turning down your thermostat and shivering off the fat.

Sounds like fun, right? Well, according to a mounting body of research, it just might actually help move your scale’s needle. For instance, in one The Journal of Clinical Investigation study, people who spent two hours a day for six weeks chattering their teeth in a 63-degree room burned more energy than people who spent the time in warmer temperatures. In a Diabetes study, people who slept in 66.2-degree rooms increased their levels of healthy brown fat, which is linked to weight loss, healthier blood sugar levels, and longevity. And according to research published in Cell, cold air activates cellular signaling pathways associated with increased longevity.

It’s possible that, in response to chilly temps, your body works to increase your internal temperature both through shivering and other internal processes, says Christopher Ochner, Ph.D., nutrition expert for USANA and weight-loss expert at the Mount Sinai Hospital in New York. After all, it doesn’t want to freeze to death, and the higher internal temperatures burn more calories.

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Plus, when you hang out in cold temps over miserably hot ones, you could potentially shed some water weight since your body isn’t preoccupied with offsetting water lost through sweating and breathing hot air, says Brian Quebbemann, M.D., a bariatric surgeon with the Chapman Medical Center in California and president of The N.E.W. Program.

But can this really lead to meaningful weight loss? Experts say no. “Sitting in a cold room all day is far from a practical weight-loss strategy,” says Quebbemann. “The effect is relatively small, meaning it doesn’t cause you to burn enough calories to make a huge difference for weight loss efforts. Further, cold temperatures are uncomfortable and relatively difficult to orchestrate consistently throughout one’s life. Your coworkers would likely complain if you turned the thermostat down to 65 degrees.” 

RELATED: Does Working Out in the Cold Burn More Calories?

One popular treatment—called cryotherapy—takes the idea of spending time in the cold to the extreme. During a cryotherapy session, you spend about three minutes in a chamber (you wear socks, gloves, and a swimsuit or a shirt and shorts while you're in there) being exposed to sub-zero temperatures. Proponents of cryotherapy claim that it reduces cellulite, heals skin conditions, provides joint pain relief, eases anxiety, and boosts your immune and metabolic health—but it’s far from expert-approved.

“If you want to remove a wart, cryotherapy is the treatment of choice,” says Ochner. “If you want to lose weight or improve your overall health, it's likely to do absolutely nothing beyond whatever placebo effect you experience.” Similarly, he says he doesn't believe the existing evidence on extreme temperatures and longevity is compelling enough to change your behavior based off of it. 

Ochner notes that some Olympic athletes in Poland have reported improved athletic performance with cryotherapy. “However, the data is very sparse and mixed, so it's too early to tell for sure whether it has any benefit over ice packs and baths and there is certainly no evidence of it having any benefit for weight loss,” he says. “At least in so far as the technology stands today, and is likely to stand for the next several decades, cryotherapy belongs on the huge pile of snake oil-like gimmicks on which people should not waste their money.”

RELATED: Sane Ways to Burn Calories That Don't Involve Freezing Your Butt Off

The bottom line: “The human body is not designed for extremes in just about anything, especially temperatures,” says Ochner. “As with most things, moderation is the key to life. Trying to outsmart your own biology is almost always a losing proposition.” 

Gifs courtesy of giphy.com

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