"... they simulated, in effect, a prolonged, exhausting and ultimately muscle-ripping leg day at the gym.... [T]hey gathered muscle samples from some animals immediately after their simulated exertions and then strapped tiny ice packs onto the legs of about half of the mice, while leaving the rest unchilled. The scientists continued to collect muscle samples from members of both groups of mice every few hours and then days after their pseudo-workout, for the next two weeks. Then they microscopically scrutinized all of the tissues, with a particular focus on what might be going on with inflammatory cells.... They... noted, in the tissue that had not been iced, a rapid muster of pro-inflammatory cells. Within hours, these cells began busily removing cellular debris, until, by the third day after the contractions, most of the damaged fibers had been cleared away. At that point, anti-inflammatory cells showed up, together with specialized muscle cells that rebuild tissue, and by the end of two weeks, these muscles appeared fully healed. Not so in the iced muscle, where recovery seemed markedly delayed....."
Lots of the comments over there object to the cruelty to the mice.
Posts
30 comments:
Well testing ice packs after exercise does not sound like a compelling reason to abuse any animal?
How do you keep "tiny ice packs" from just melting right away?
What about the PLANET? Did anyone think of the feelings of the MICE?
Cis-presumption and misgendering is cruel. Rather offensive they just assigned male to these mice.
Mice on ice, or "I hate meeses to pieces."
I love it when experiments involve making miniature versions of things intended for humans. Erma Bombeck riffed on that in one of her books, describing an "experiment" where mice were dressed in various clothes to see what made them look taller and therefore thinner, in support of a hypothesis that women weren't overweight, they were undertall. Vertical stripes made the mice look ten pounds thinner, for instance.
This was just on Lex Fridmans podcast with Andy Huberman. The advice is avoid cold immersion for 4-hours after training.
As teenagers, did they hide copies of Young, Healthy, Male Mouse magazine under their mattresses after stimulating themselves?
NIH funded "research" no doubt.
I take offense in describing research participants as "mice." This suggests they are small, dirty, unwanted, and can be killed in traps without penalty. PETA does not mean People Eating Tasty Animals! Trans-species rights, right now!
My serious question is whether they overstimulated the tiny mouse muscles pas the safe point, or over-iced them to the point of partial freezing. All sorts of physical properties don't scale well (e.g., gravity's effects on mice, humans, horses, or elephants isn't a linear relationship -- bigger animals splat much more than smaller animals.) Small animals can actually be frozen/dead completely and brought back with no harm. Humans are much larger so ice causes swelling/cell damage that can't be reversed.
Regarding workouts humans use ice packs on severely sore muscles or minor injuries, but to the best of my knowledge they don't generally wrap their entire legs in ice packs. Some athletes and heath extremists do take ice baths, but that's not typical.
It’s a bit late in the month for an April Fool’s joke, isn’t it?
Good information to know. I've always been skeptical the body didn't "know" how to mount an effective repair procedure.
People always feel they have to do something. Muscle soreness: ice it. Temperature may rise: set yourself on fire.
Doing nothing is often the best response.
If all you're doing is leg workouts, isn't it just as bad if you're skipping arm day?
Do the mice look like tiny, furry T-Rex?
'How do you keep "tiny ice packs" from just melting right away?'
With slightly larger, less tiny ice packs to surround them.
But where will the madness end?
It reminds me of buying cheese or chocolate in Tokyo in the summer.
Most stores will wrap the item in a small ice pack.
That's service : )
Are you sure you weren't reading the Babylon Bee not the NYT?
This story stirred up an ancient memory:
Love to eat them mousies
Mousies what I love to eat.
Bite they little heads off,
Nibble on they tiny feet.
-B. Kliban
How much taxpayer money was wasted on this research? All they had to do was consult a couple of fitness trainers about post-exercise care. Done in a day. But, that would not employ a bevy of researchers and their assistants. Nor, the purchasing, at exorbitant prices, of tiny ice packs. Gotta spread the graft around.
Ann Althouse said...
This story stirred up an ancient memory:
Love to eat them mousies
Mousies what I love to eat.
Bite they little heads off,
Nibble on they tiny feet.
-B. Kliban
I miss the Kliban cats!! I had a coffee mug with that little mousie poem!!
I’m picturing “they tiny feet” with tiny ice packs!
""[R]esearchers... gathered 40 young, healthy, male mice…"
Missed opportunity there.
See! Playboy was poetry!
"How much taxpayer money was wasted on this research? All they had to do was consult a couple of fitness trainers about post-exercise care."
I don't think this was a waste at all, Senator Proxmire. Ask 50 fitness trainers, you'll get 60 opinions and be no closer to the truth. I think this one was a good use of research dollars.
Coming off of a frozen shoulder episode, I personally don't give two shits about those mice. Ice packs work wonders.
Actually, to revise and extend my remarks, ask 50 fitness trainers and apparently you'll get 50 wrong answers (to wit, "ice it").
Well I for one find it interesting, since I have been icing after exercise for 20+ years.
What I get from the study is that there might be a way for Bill Gates to zap his body buff.
Think of the meeces!
Effects of Topical Icing on Inflammation, Angiogenesis, Revascularization, and Myofiber Regeneration in Skeletal Muscle Following Contusion Injury
>Routine histology with H&E staining revealed extensive necrosis of muscle fibers 1 d after injury in both the sham and icing groups (Figure ?(Figure4).4). The necrotic muscle fibers were identified by enlarged myofibers without nuclei. Inflammatory cell infiltration accompanied the necrosis and comprised mainly multinucleated leukocytes (neutrophils) (Figure ?(Figure5).5). In the rats sacrificed at 3 d after injury, the necrosis had cleared almost entirely in the sham group, whereas several necrotic areas were still present within the icing group.
...
We applied ice treatment at only one time point soon after muscle injury. It is possible that more frequent icing may have produced different effects on inflammation, angiogenesis, and myofiber regeneration. We also used only male rats. Icing may have produced different effects in female rats because of the effects of estrogen on the time course and dynamics of muscle regeneration
I dunno, seems the "electro-stimulation" is akin to the long ago discredited "electro-stimulated" ab work out belt?
No pain, no gain.
Origin
The ancient Greek poet Hesiod (c. 750-650 BC) expresses this idea in Works and Days where he wrote:
...But before the road of Excellence the immortal gods have placed sweat. And the way to it is long and steep and rough at first. But when one arrives at the summit, then it is easy, even though remaining difficult.[6][7][8][9]
The ancient Greek playwright Sophocles (5th Century BC) expresses this idea in the play Electra (line 945).[7][10][11] This line is translated as: "nothing truly succeeds without pain",[12] "nothing succeeds without toil",[13] "there is no success without hard work",[14] and “Without labour nothing prospers (well).”[15]
A form of this expression is found in the beginning of the second century, written in The Ethics of the Fathers 5:23 (known in Hebrew as Pirkei Avot), which quotes Ben Hei Hei as saying, "According to the pain is the reward."[10][16][17] This is interpreted to be a spiritual lesson; without the pain in doing what God commands, there is no spiritual gain.
In 1577 British poet Nicholas Breton wrote: "They must take pain that look for any gain."[18]
One of the earliest attestations of the phrase comes from the poet Robert Herrick in his "Hesperides". In the 1650 edition, a two-line poem was added:
NO PAINS, NO GAINS.
If little labour, little are our gains:
Man's fate is according to his pains.
— Hesperides 752.[18][19]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No_pain,_no_gain
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