Ice prevents healing in case of injury--study

Using ice on an injury might obstruct its healing, making the healing process longer, the study confirms.

Ice prevents the release of an essential hormone that is produced by inflamed tissue. This hormone is required by the body cells to heal damaged tissue.

Inflamed cells have the ability to produce insulin-like growth factor-1 (IGF-1), a hormone which increases the rate of muscle regeneration and helps in healing faster.

Dr Gerald Weissmann, Editor-in-Chief of the FASEB stated, “For wounds to heal we need controlled inflammation, not too much, and not too little.

“It’s been known for a long time that excess anti-inflammatory medication, such as cortisone, slows wound healing. This study goes a long way to telling us why: insulin-like growth factor and other materials released by inflammatory cells helps wound to heal.”

The study details
The study, led by Professor Lan Zhou and colleagues at the Neuroinflammation Research Centre at the Cleveland Clinic in Ohio, looked at mice which were randomly divided into 2 groups.

The first group was genetically functioned so that it could generate an inflammatory response to injury while the second group was normal.

Artificial muscle injury was produced in both the mice groups by injecting a solution of barium chloride.

Mice in first group did not heal but the mice in the second group were able to heal quickly, the study reveals.

On analyzing the mice tissue, researchers came to the conclusion that the healthy mice were able to generate high levels of IGF-1 in their inflamed tissue.

The study has been published in the Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology journal.

Study might help in future discoveries
The Daily Mail reported that the study has come as a setback to the conventional wisdom that swelling should be curbed in order to heal an injury.

The findings of the study might open doors for new therapies to acute muscle injuries caused by trauma, chemicals, infections, freeze damage, and exposure to medications.

It can further lead to methods for calculating how much patient monitoring is required in case of long period usage of potent anti-inflammatory drugs.

Researcher Lan Zhou said, "We hope that our findings stimulate further research to dissect different roles played by tissue inflammation in clinical settings, so we can utilize the positive effects and control the negative effects of tissue inflammation."