'After my double [cryo] sessions… I feel like I can leap over buildings, and any aches are gone gone gone.'
DIANNE MCGRATH wears a lot of hats from Consultant to PhD Researcher to Biohacker to Mars One Astronaut candidate and more. Along her inspiring journey to be both Mars-ready and Dianne 2.0 today, she shares how she embraces Whole Body Cryotherapy to hack her health and the science behind it.
Similarly to the question of why I would want to go one-way to Mars with the @marsoneproject , you may wonder why I would want to subject my body to temperatures of -110 degrees C (-166 degrees F) for a few minutes on a regular basis. Yes - whole body cryo (WBC). Randomly, that is actually far colder than the average temperature on Mars. Mars? cold? #whatever #bringit My skin temp drops from around 34C pre to around 5C post in 3 minutes. It doesn't bother me. I'm adapted to it. As you can see in the pic, I have a blast!
I use WBC to hack a number of health aspects, including healing injuries, building bone, & improve my general physical & mental capacities. There's increasing scientific evidence on the value of WBC in recovery, pain management, healing and more for athletes (see Lombardi, Ziemann & Banfi 2017 for a brilliant review). There are some other awesome aspects: neutrophil levels increase & stimulate angiogenesis, which reduces DOMS & improves recovery. Diabetic? I'm not, but I'm gung-ho on making sure I don't go down that path. WBC has shown significant increases in HDL cholesterol, & dramatic drops in triglycerides & LDL. It also activates BAT (brown adipose tissue) fat, & can turn white adipose tissue (WAT) into brown. This has implications for anyone trying to improve their health (and lose weight). BAT fat is healthy fat. WAT - not so. For those of us wanting to improve our body's ability to build bone: WBC has an increased osteogenic effect (ie it may assist in fracture recovery & prevent future stress fractures). Want to improve memory? Urbanska et al 2017 showed it can do that. WBC is also a strong anti-inflammatory. After my double sessions (I do a 3min -110C session, followed by 10 mins of cardio on a bike at room temp to bring the body temp up again, then another 3 mins at -110C), I feel like I can leap over buildings, and any aches are gone gone gone. It's addictive! And makes you feel great. This may also be because it can affect hormones, decreasing cortisol/stress in particular.
Thanks as always to the team at @alchemycryo for helping me push things to my healthful limits.
Dianne