Wim Hof claims the ability to control his immune system, switch off stress and boost his metabolism by 300% – all with his mind. What’s more, he believes he can teach you the same. You just need to embrace the cold. MH travelled to the Dutch hinterland to get under the impermeable skin of the Iceman
In 2013, scientists at the Radboud University Medical Centre in the Netherlands injected volunteers with a dead strain of e.coli to promote a flu-like immune response. The subjects had been randomly split into two groups; the first comprised healthy individuals and was the control group against which the other was to be measured. The second – the test group – was virtually the same except for one difference: for 10 days they undertook an intense programme of meditation, breathing techniques and cold exposure.
The aim was to discern whether, despite the prevailing science, we might have written into our biological code an almost superhuman ability to control immune responses on demand. In essence, the researchers wanted to know if regular men could fight off pathogens with their minds. Having observed the subjects, it was concluded that, yes, they could.
On hand beside nurses, physiologists and scientists was self-experimenting civilian Wim Hof. It was Hof’s formula of severe cold exposure and modified breathing – the so-called Wim Hof Method – that the test group had learned. And it was Hof, the established poster boy for extremophiles, who first postulated the existence of this innate ability to influence the immune system at will.
The results of the experiment continue to shake our understanding of the human body and its capabilities. They have also given Hof a reputation as a maverick outlier of biology. But should we be giving credence to a self-taught medical radical over decades of established research? And, should you be brave enough to follow Hof’s lead into his boundary pushing blizzard, would you emerge a master of your body and mind? Or will your health simply be left out in the cold?
The Iceman Cometh
This story is from the June 2017 edition of Men's Health UK.
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This story is from the June 2017 edition of Men's Health UK.
Start your 7-day Magzter GOLD free trial to access thousands of curated premium stories, and 9,000+ magazines and newspapers.
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