Studies by Associate Professor Takamitsu Arakawa of the Graduate School of Health Sciences, Kobe University and Associate Professor Noriaki Kawanishi of the Faculty of Advanced Engineering, Chiba Institute of Technology show that icing treated when injured in sports delays the regeneration of damaged muscles. rice field.The research group points out that in the event of severe muscle damage, there is an option to keep it cool to speed recovery.
According to Kobe University, the research team applied electrical stimulation to the mice, and while forcing the muscles to work, the ankle joints were moved with a stronger force in the opposite direction to the movement, causing severe muscle damage close to muscle strain. After that, it was cooled from above the skin with ice in a polyethylene bag for 2 days, and the state of muscle regeneration was observed.
As a result, it was found that the group of mice with icing had a higher proportion of regenerated muscles with a small cross-sectional area than the group without icing.In the process of muscle regeneration, inflammatory cells gather to make new muscles, but when muscles are collected and examined over time, it is clear that inflammatory cells do not enter much into the muscles of the icing group. became.
Macrophages are representative of inflammatory cells that enter injured muscles, and there are inflammatory macrophages that phagocytose the debris of broken muscles and cause an inflammatory reaction, and anti-inflammatory macrophages that promote repair.In a herd of icing mice, the arrival of inflammatory macrophages was delayed, affecting regeneration.
In sports, the general idea is to icing as soon as you get injured, but the research group says that severe muscle damage can contribute to icing inhibition of regeneration.
