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Trial, not randomized · measured lab tests or safety

Trial in 9 men: cold water and easy cycling showed no clear inflammation difference

Peake and colleagues · The Journal of physiology · 2017

Original title: The effects of cold water immersion and active recovery on inflammation and cell stress responses in human skeletal muscle after resistance exercise.

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What the study found

No difference

Muscle inflammation and cell stress signals did not differ between cold water and easy cycling at 2, 24 and 48 hours after exercise.

The study at a glance

Type of study
Trial, not randomized
Who or what was studied
9 people · 9 active men after leg strength exercise
What was tested
10 minutes in 10°C water after exercise vs 10 minutes of easy cycling, on separate days
What it measured
Lab tests or markers
Who has a stake
No disclosure in PubMed
No disclosure in PubMed.
Journal
The Journal of physiology, 2017
Source
PubMed record 27704555. This page is based on the abstract only.

How much this study counts

  • –Not randomized: the groups may differ in ways that affect the result.
  • –Small: 9 people. Small trials can miss real effects or find chance ones.
  • –Measured lab tests or markers, which stand in for muscle recovery, mood and immune health. A better marker does not always mean better health.
  • •The PubMed record has no conflict-of-interest statement.
  • •Summarized from the PubMed abstract only. The full paper may hold details the abstract leaves out.

✓ Strength– Limit• Note

These points come from fixed rules about the type of study, its size and length, what it measured, and who has a stake. Every study on Digestery gets the same rules.

Where this study sits

Each dot is one on-topic paper on this question. Steps near the top answer the question more directly.

↑ Stronger evidence

  1. Trials in people: muscle recovery and mood

    8

    1 benefit, 1 mixed, 5 no difference, 1 harm

  2. Trials in people: other measures

    8

    2 benefit, 1 mixed, 4 no difference, 1 harm

  3. Trials in people: lab tests or safety

    3

    1 benefit, 2 no difference

    ↑ This study is the ringed dot

  4. Population studies

    3

    2 benefit, 1 mixed

  5. Blood levels and genes

    0

    None among the papers we read.

↓ Weaker evidence

  • Points to benefit
  • Mixed
  • No difference
  • No direction
  • Points to harm

How it fits with the other research

The short answer to “Does cold plunging help recovery and mood?”

Eases soreness a little; mood unproven.

Confidence: low. Based on 30 on-topic papers.

Read the full answer

Of the other 2 papers on the same step: 1 benefit, 1 no difference. This one found no difference.

  • Marked as a key paper in the research timeline: First human muscle data on cold water and inflammation.
  • Open item for a person: Peake 2017 (nine men, biopsies at 2, 24, 48 h) may share participants with the second study in Roberts 2015; check overlap.

Other papers on the same step

See all 30 studies on this question

How this page was made

Label

First read of the abstract
Claude Sonnet
Independent second read
Claude Haiku
Differences settled
The two reads agreed on every checked field. Claude Opus 5.5.
Headline
Claude Sonnet, from the checked study record. A script checked its numbers and wording.
Numbers
Checked against the abstract by a script
“How much this study counts”
Fixed rules, the same for every study
Source check by a person
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