The Peter Attia Drive cover image

The Peter Attia Drive

#132 - AMA #16: Exploring hot and cold therapy

Oct 12, 2020
In a deep dive on hot and cold therapy, Bob Kaplan, Peter Attia's head of research, shares insights into the evidence supporting these therapies. They discuss the efficacy of cold therapy for muscle soreness and explore intriguing connections to depression and immune function. Kaplan reveals the potential longevity benefits of dry saunas, critically analyzing the existing literature. They also discuss how stress manifests physically and share personal anecdotes about the challenges of managing time zone changes, adding a relatable touch to their expert conversation.
19:21

Episode guests

Podcast summary created with Snipd AI

Quick takeaways

  • Hot and cold therapy has various physiological benefits including improving cardiovascular health, boosting endothelial function, enhancing glucose metabolism, impacting autonomic nervous activity, providing cerebral protection, and increasing stress resistance.
  • Stress can manifest physically in the body, leading to body aches and discomfort, affecting sleep patterns, and overall well-being. It is important to recognize and address stress-related effects on the body.

Deep dives

Hot and cold therapy: A deep dive discussion

In this AMA episode, the hosts delve into the topic of hot and cold therapy, devoting a significant portion of the episode to discussing its benefits. They mention that they have conducted extensive research on this topic and highlight that hot and cold therapy has been found to have numerous physiological responses. These responses include improving cardiovascular health, boosting endothelial function and arterial stiffness, enhancing glucose metabolism, impacting autonomic nervous activity, providing cerebral protection, and increasing stress resistance. The hosts also touch upon how cold therapy can reduce delayed onset muscle soreness and discuss the method of using ice baths for this purpose. They mention the difficulty of controlling for the placebo effect in these studies and share personal experiences with ice baths. However, they caution that further research is needed to determine the true impact of hot and cold therapy on overall health and lifespan.

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