WEIGHT WORRIES GO INTO DEEP FREEZE
FORGET slogging away at the gym for hours on end.
For $75 and just three minutes in a freezing chamber at -110C, you could burn 800 calories.
Cryo performance at Robina opened their doors less than three months ago but owner Mark Sullivan says using the chamber for weight loss has been very popular.
Mr Sullivan said while there hadn’t been much research into cryotherapy as a weight loss treatment, it was regularly used for sports injuries.
“I’m an ex-physiologist and mostly worked with chronic patients,” he said.
“We tried cryo as an alternative to surgery. Their inflammatory and pain meds dropped so they didn’t need surgery.”
He said patients could come in for a 15-minute consult and they would receive special garments to wear to protect hands, feet and ears.
“Minus 110C for three minutes is most effective, it can go colder but there’s no point,” he said.
“You’re just making it colder for no reason.”
Mr Sullivan said one woman came in for five days in a row and after initially measuring her body and muscle fat, found she had lost a kilogram.
However, not everyone is as impressed.
General practitioner Dr Roger Halliwell said cryotherapy was not mainstream medicine and there was not a lot of research behind cryotherapy as a weight loss tool.
“The short answer is nobody know (if it works), there’s no research in that sort of modality,” he said. “I’m not convinced at all I’m afraid.”