Exposure to cold temperatures can help boost weight loss
Last night was the first-ever cold-weather Super Bowl (meaning that it was the first time it was played outdoors not in California or the South) with temps ranging throughout the 40s with no precipitation—not the Ice Bowl some predicted. We’re not here to talk about the outcome of the game (as DailyHap counts a few Broncos fans on its staff), but the weather.
Weather Channel managing editor Sam Champion told The Seattle Times before the game, “I think this is exactly what the NFL wanted. It’s going back to the basics of football — a game played in the elements. It’s a tough game and it’s played in tough conditions. And people want to see that.”
Turns out, the NFL could also be helping its 82,529 spectators lose weight: a new study shows that regular exposure to mild cold may be a healthy and sustainable way to help people lose weight. In young and middle-aged people, non-shivering heat production can account for anywhere from a few percent up to 30 percent of the body’s energy budget, they say. That means that lower temps could greatly affect energy expenditure.
They may have been shivering at the Super Bowl. But you could benefit from turning your office and home thermostats down a bit to tax your systems.
Article author Wouter van Marken Lichtenbelt of Maastricht University Medical Center in The Netherlands says that the evidence suggests a more variable indoor temperature – changing along with temperatures outside – might be beneficial, although long-term effects still await further investigation.
Marken Lichtenbelt and his colleagues started studying the effects of mild cold about 10 years ago, mostly because it had received so little attention. Their research shows that heat-generating, calorie-burning brown fat isn’t just for babies; adults have it too. A research group from Japan found a decrease in body fat after people spent two hours per day at 62.6 degrees F for six weeks.
People also can and do get used to the cold over time. After six hours a day in the cold for a period of 10 days, people in their study increased brown fat, felt more comfortable, and shivered less at 59 degrees F.
Marken Lichtenbelt says, “What would it mean if we let our bodies work again to control body temperature? We hypothesize that the thermal environment affects human health and more specifically that frequent mild cold exposure can significantly affect our energy expenditure over sustained time periods.”