As an intern at COSMOS Online:
Despite the mountain of anecdotal evidence for the effectiveness of hot water bottles on pain relief, heat treatment has often been regarded with scepticism at best. Well, here's news that will make your mum proud: the old wives' tale that heat relieves abdominal pain has now received scientific backing.
Physiologist Brian King of the University College London led a study that proved, on a molecular level, that heat provides up to an hour's relief from internal pains such as stomach aches, colic or menstrual cramps.
King explained that abdominal pain commonly occurs when hollow organs, such as the bowel or uterus, either receive insufficient blood or become bloated. These events lead to local tissue damage and, consequently, the production of a chemical called ATP. Receptors called P2X3 sense the presence of ATP, triggering what doctors call nociception, and what we lay-people call a tummy ache. The pain is thought to be how the body warns of cellular damage in an effort to reduce any future harm.
In the study King and his team found that heat receptors known as TRPV1 deactivate P2X3 when triggered near the site of injury. TRPV1 responds to temperatures greater than 40 degrees Celsius.
"Heat doesn't just provide comfort and have a placebo effect," King said. "It actually deactivates the pain at a molecular level in much the same way as pharmaceutical painkillers work.
"The problem with heat is that it can only provide temporary relief," he said. "The focus of future research will continue to be the discovery and development of pain relief drugs that will block P2X3 pain receptors. Our research adds to a body of work showing that P2X3 receptors are key to the development of drugs that will alleviate debilitating internal pain."
Sounds like a good excuse to stay in bed with a nice hot water bottle.
