Effects of Drinking Ice Cold Water on Metabolic Rate
Gabriel Gamo, Kim Maldonado, and Monica Vivar
Department of Biological Sciences
Saddleback College
Mission Viejo, CA 92692
Abstract
A healthy lifestyle has rapidly become a priority in modern culture and an easy jumpstart
to that lifestyle is daily consumption of water. One of the important beneficiaries of regular
consumption of water is an increase in metabolism since the body must burn calories to heat the
water to the core temperature of thirty-seven degrees Celsius. The amount of energy utilized to
compensate for the consumed water is dependent on the temperature of the water. Therefore, it
was predicted that consuming ice-cold water would yield a higher increase in metabolic rate than
the consumption of room-temperature water since more energy is required to heat up a cold
water sample to the core temperature. Ten subjects fasted for 8-10 hours and a basal metabolic
rate was taken. Subjects drank 500 mL of room-temperature water (20.0oC) and forty-five
minutes later, a final reading was taken. The same procedure was repeated but with 500 mL of
ice-cold water (3oC). The difference in metabolic rate between the ten subjects was averaged for
room-temperature water (92.8 ± 17.3 mg/L/s) and ice-cold water (87.6± 40.8 mg/L/s). Ice-cold
water does not increase metabolic rate more than room-temperature water (p = 0.4539, paired ttest for means).
Introduction
Water is the most important nutrient that every living creature requires in order to
survive. To aid in a healthy lifestyle it is encouraged to drink water every day since consuming
water has many benefits; for example, water has the ability to increase metabolic rate, and
increase the systolic blood pressure of the consumer (1). The ability of water to increase
metabolic rate, at room temperature (20°C) and ice cold water (3°C), is going to be analyzed in
this experiment. It can be predicted that the consumption of ice cold water will increase
metabolic rate significantly higher than the consumption of room-temperature water after fortyfive minutes. This is because after drinking water, the core temperature of the body will decrease
and undergo homeostasis to bring the temperature back to normal (37oC). It then can be
predicted that consuming colder water will decrease the core temperature more and the body will
then need to use more energy to return to homeostasis.
The optimal time to measure metabolic rate is forty-five minutes after consuming a food
or drink item. When calculating an accurate metabolic rate, there are several factors that have to
be taken into consideration such as muscle mass, age, and body size just to name a few are
factors that affect metabolism in humans (2). Since there are so many factors affecting
metabolism throughout the day the subjects were asked to fast the night before and to avoid any
strenuous activity. Furthermore, to ensure consistency in a controlled environment, all testing
was taken in the same room to avoid discrepancies in environments.
Materials and Methods
Ten adult subjects were used in this study. Subjects were students or staff at Saddleback
College, Mission Viejo, California. All measurements were made on 11 through 18 November
2015. Subjects were approached and asked to participate in the study and after agreement was
reached, a meeting date was set. Subjects were told to fast for 8-10 hours before testing on both
days. Prior to testing a spirometer and Pascal device with CO2 concentration and temperature
probes were setup. Each subject patiently waited for their turn without doing any vigorous
activity. Once it was their turn, the subject exhaled 10 liters worth of air into the spirometer and
was captured. From there the experimenters placed the CO2 and temperature probes into the
source of air output and allowed the air to be released and passed through the probes. CO2
concentration and the temperature of the exhaled air was recorded on the Pascal device and data
was transferred onto a USB drive. This data was saved under “Resting Metabolic Rate.” This
procedure was repeated for each subject. After all subjects have been measured for their resting
metabolic rate each subject drank 500 milliliters of room-temperature water. After thirty minutes
of non-vigorous activity another air sample will be taken following the same procedure as the
“Resting Metabolic Rate.” On the next day the same procedure was followed as the first day
except instead of room-temperature water the subjects consumed 500 milliliters of ice-cold
water. All observations and any data not collected on the Pascal device were recorded in a lab
notebook. Data was transferred into Microsoft Excel (Microsoft Corporation, Redmond,
Washington) where all further statistical manipulations were performed.
Results
The basal metabolic rate and the metabolic rate after the consumption of water collected
in a spirometer were analyzed using Pasco GLX. The values projected by the Pasco GLX were
run through statistical analysis to determine the mean differences in metabolic rate after the
consumption of room temperature and ice cold water.
The statistical analysis performed on the values projected by the Pasco GLX revealed that
the metabolic rate increased by 92.8 ± 17.3 mg/L/s after the consumption of room temperature
water. The statistical analysis indicated that the metabolic rate also increased after the
consumption of ice cold water by 87.6± 40.8 mg/L/s. A one-tailed, paired t-test was performed
(p=0.4539) and it revealed that there is no significant difference in the increase of metabolic rate
after the consumption of room temperature or ice water (Figure 1).
140
Metabolic rate (mg/L/s)
120
100
80
60
40
20
0
Room Temperature
Ice Water
Figure 1: Mean difference in metabolic rate after the consumption of room temperature and ice cold water
(n=10).The mean difference in metabolic rate after the consumption of room temperature water is 92.8 ± 17.3
mg/L/s. The mean difference in metabolic rate after the consumption of ice water is 87.6± 40.8 mg/L/s. Error bars
are mean ± SEM.
Discussion
Based on the collected data, there is no significant difference in the metabolic rate
(p=0.4539) of subjects after the consumption of room temperature water and ice cold water. The
result do not support the initial hypothesis stating that metabolic rate will increase significantly
after the consumption of ice cold water. One possible reason that leads to the rejection of the
hypothesis is that the amount of energy needed to increase the temperature of the ice cold water
to a normal body temperature (37°C) is only eight calories more than the amount of energy
required to process room temperature water (6).
A common assumption is that drinking ice cold water can be used as a significant source
to increase metabolic activity; however, the degree of increase in metabolic activity differs from
person to person. The reasons why the degree of increase in metabolic activity differs in each
person is due to several factors such as age, gender, diet, body size, and lifestyle. As people age
the metabolic rate generally slows down due to loss of muscle tissue, and hormonal changes as
well as neurological changes. People with a larger body size tend to have a faster basal metabolic
activity because they have more surface area to regulate and sustain at a constant temperature.
Individuals with a larger mass tend to have larger organs and fluid volume. Gender plays a role
because males tend to have a bigger body size than females. People with a healthy more active
life style burn more calories at rest compared to individuals with a less active life style.
All data were collected and recorded from ten to eleven in the morning to keep a
controlled experiment. Basal metabolic rate is best measured in the morning and after eight to ten
hour fasting period. Due to the fact that the subjects were not undergoing any strenuous activity,
basal metabolic rate was accurately measured. All subjects were students at Saddleback College
and were enrolled in the same biology class. Data was collected during the lab portion of
Biology 3B, General Biology. The day the readings for the consumption of room temperature
were taken, a Dive Lab was taking place at the same time. Students were required to submerge a
portion of their head into room temperature and warm water. The students were up and moving
during the lab period. The day the readings for the consumption of ice water were taken, a
lecture on plants was taking place. Each student was sitting in a chair and listening to the lecture.
The amount of activity occurring on the first day of sample collection could have played a role in
the skewness of the greater increase in metabolic rate for the consumption of room temperature
water as opposed to ice water.
In order to continue this study, changes would have to be taken into consideration. A
possible change can be to have the volunteers consume ice (0°C) and room temperature water
(20°C), and increase the quantity of water consumed. Testing subjects with similar body size and
mass can also impact the data to collect more comparable results. The removal of other affecting
components, such as only testing one specific gender, can also have significant impact in the
result. Other further studies ideas can be to follow the same procedure, but compare the
differences in metabolic rate of the two genders of same age group.
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