About The Article In The Journal de Montréal

Thanks to Jean Balthazard for this nice report. We can say that, reluctantly, he showed that he knew how to do field journalism 😉

Thanks also to Manu for the images and the sound. And above all, thank you to the Val David tribe of hoffers!

I have to comment on this report, starting by situating the context in which it took place.

Indeed, Jean was initiated to the Wim Hof ​​Method during a session between experienced practitioners in Val David. Not during a real workshop where he would have heard more in detail about what we know, and what we do not know, regarding the scientific and theoretical aspects of the method. Although we have done our best to ensure that he discovers the Wim Hof ​​Method (WHM) in the best conditions, a practice session is not a learning experience. This deserves to be clarified.

In addition, I find it not only good but quite simply necessary that a journalist questions independent voices and / or opponents to treat a subject. This was done for this report and so much the better. However, we regret that the “5 experts” are ultimately not known. It is also regrettable that those who intervene give an opinion which seems rather general, being satisfied to play the “skeptics of service” and do not really argue on the WHM stricto sensu.
Being myself a scientist, a microbiologist at the University of Montreal, I know how long and difficult the road is before establishing a “scientific truth”. And myself, it often annoys me to hear people talk about WHM as a miracle pill that would replace all medications. In short, it is obvious that WHM is not a fully scientifically validated approach. This kind of validation is very long and the WHM is fairly recent. In addition, practices such as WHM are indeed complex (breathing techniques, exposure to cold and meditation mixed) and therefore, all the more complicated to disentangle with a scientific approach, which is reductionist by nature. So, on these points, I agree with the “independent voices” of the report.
But I regret that these conclusions are put forward without any regard for the promising studies of the Wim Hof ​​Method. And yet, they are sufficiently few and therefore easily searchable. Indeed, there are a few articles specifically on WHM. In short, I would have liked these articles to be cited, because they are serious studies, published in peer-reviewed journals, one of which is very prestigious. I am of course talking about the articles from 2014 (PNAS), 2018 (NeuroImage) and 2020 (PLoS One). Admittedly, they do not prove that WHM is fully scientifically validated, that it is a panacea etc … But they give rather solid indications on the control of inflammation in particular, but also on the astonishing physiological reaction to the cold of a particularly well trained case (in this case Wim Hof). So of course, these studies are limited in terms of pathologies studied, of course the sample size is quite small, of course etc … But it is encouraging and it deserved to be mentioned. And finally, an alternative health method that shows a real thirst to be understood scientifically, that also deserves to be mentioned.

For now, scientific studies on WHM are released slowly while loads of positive testimonials and feedbacks are being gathered. The timescale of science is not the timescale of general media and the headlines.

In the end, I have no fundamental disagreement with the “independent experts” but this article leaves a feeling of unfinished work.

🔥❄️🧠✌️

Sébastien.

P.S.: The original article can be read here.