Melting The Theory on Icing
For decades we have reached for the bag of frozen peas for a wide-range of injuries such as ankle sprains, chronic back pain, headaches, among other things. It has been widely accepted practice to use icing as part of the recovery process from an injury, using the familiar acronym of RICE (rest, ice, compression, and elevation) to guide us back to full strength. Turns out, that was wrong.
A new study examining the relationship of pro-inflammatory markers and healing of muscle tissue in mice demonstrates that icing isn’t all that cool…
The researchers placed a muscle stimulation unit on mice and simulated a strenuous workout of their calf muscles. Next, one group of mice got ice on their muscles, the other did not. Over the next two weeks, researchers examined specific inflammatory markers by collecting samples from the muscles and compared the healing of the tissue to each other.
What the researchers noticed in their sampling of the non-iced tissues was a huge conglomeration of pro-inflammatory cells had move into the affected muscle. These cells moved debris and byproducts away and out of the damaged muscle cells, thus promoting the healing process. They then noticed that once the damaged fibers had been cleared, anti-inflammatory cells moved in along with other healing markers to begin the restoration process. Within two weeks, the muscles appeared to be full healed.
On the contrary, in the icing group it took seven days for these muscles to reach the same level of pro-inflammatory cells compared to just three days for the non-ice group. This delayed response resulted in a longer healing time and ultimately this group showed signs of incomplete healing after two weeks.
So what does this mean for humans? After all, we are not mice.
This study observed muscle tissue in mice, which for the most part behaves similarly throughout all animals. Thus, it is likely that our tissues would behave in a similar way.
A limitation of this study is the examination of the tissues only after a strenuous workout, but not in a severe injury scenario. This limitation suggest that these results potentially wouldn’t have the same correlation to a more severe injury (say an ACL reconstruction). In this type of scenario, ice potentially could be used to mitigate too much swelling (although swelling is needed to promote the healing process).
When deciding if icing after a minor injury is the right way to go this study provides good insight. Ultimately, our bodies know how to heal themselves quite well. It’s likely best to keep the ice in the freezer.