MS & Cooling research

This page collects published medical papers, clinical studies, and articles on how heat affects people with MS and how body cooling can help. We are making no medical, clinical, or other recommendations here. Please consult your health care professional before buying or using any body cooling product.

Start here

If you are new to the topic, these plain-language overviews are the best first read.

• Why MS & Cooling? — our own overview of heat sensitivity and how cooling helps.
• Multiple Sclerosis Overview — Multiple Sclerosis Association of America.
• Cool Down MS — Brain & Life (formerly Neurology Now), American Academy of Neurology.

Recent evidence

The strongest modern evidence comes from systematic reviews that pool results across many trials.

• The effect of cooling garments to improve physical function in people with MS: a systematic review and meta-analysis (Stevens et al., 2023). Across studies, cooling garments improved walking capacity, functional mobility, fatigue, and thermal comfort, with no harm reported and no single garment shown to be superior.
• Impact of pre-cooling therapy on physical performance and functional capacity of MS patients: a systematic review (2018). Pre-cooling helped prevent the symptom worsening that comes with a rise in body temperature, without adverse effects.
• Cooling vests improve 6-minute walk test performance in people with MS: a randomized crossover trial — International Journal of MS Care.
• Voluntary cooling during exercise is augmented in people with MS who experience heat sensitivity (2021).

Foundational studies

Landmark research that established the link between body temperature and MS symptoms. First documented in 1959 (Watson, New England Journal of Medicine).

• Effect of body temperature on visual evoked potential delay and visual perception in MS (J Neurol Neurosurg Psychiatry, 1977).
• Clinical and immunological effects of cooling in MS (Coyle et al., 1996).
• Effect of precooling on physical performance in MS (White et al., Mult Scler, 2000).
• Physiologic and functional responses of MS patients to body cooling (Ku, Montgomery et al., 2000).
• Cooling garment treatment in MS: clinical improvement and decrease in leukocyte NO production (Neurology, 2001).
• A randomized controlled study of the acute and chronic effects of cooling therapy for MS (Schwid et al.; NASA/MS Cooling Study Group, Neurology, 2003) — the large controlled trial.
• Effects of peripheral cooling on intention tremor in MS (Feys et al., JNNP, 2005).
• Evaluation of a single session with a cooling garment for persons with MS: a randomized trial (Nilsagard et al., 2006).
• Advanced lightweight cooling-garment technology: functional improvements in thermosensitive MS (Meyer-Heim et al., Mult Scler, 2007).
• Cooling via one hand improves physical performance in heat-sensitive individuals with MS: a preliminary study (2008).
• Thermoregulation in Multiple Sclerosis (Davis, Wilson, White, Frohman, J Appl Physiol, 2010).

Questions about cooling for MS? Call us at 1.800.763.8423. We have been helping people manage heat sensitivity since 1984.

The studies above describe what researchers observed in their trials. They are shared for information only and are not a promise of results from any Polar Products item. Please consult your health care professional before buying or using any body cooling product.