A Sunderland student has seen her ground breaking study captured on film as she explored the health and wellbeing benefits of cold-water swimming.
Bridie Hodgson, a final year Biomedical Science student at the University of Sunderland, worked with women from the ‘Wild Sea Women’ group to try to shed light on the biological benefits of cold-water swimming.
In her study, Bridie worked with some of the 12,000 members of the group, taking saliva samples from before and after the women took to the ocean at Sunderland’s Seaburn beach whilst the process was documented by filmmaker Dan Prince.
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Now going into her master’s degree, Bridie will continue her work in a new study to try and draw links between environmental exposures from sea swimming and how it affects biology and disease.
Bridie said: “This is a terrific opportunity to undertake some very fascinating work, and the University of Sunderland has allowed me to put the skills I've learned over the previous three years into practice.
“I have confidence since I have been engaged in every aspect of the project, from recruiting to meeting participants and working with samples. Our next step is to pursue a master's degree in September with a similar project.”
As the first study concluded, Bridie and her team did not find any significant changes in participants bio-markers but will now develop their research with a larger group of ‘Wild Sea Women’.
Dr Katrin Jaedicke, a Senior Lecturer in Applied Biosciences who worked closely with Bridie, said that their long-term research on this has only just begun.
They said: “We wanted to discover if there were any biological changes in the body reacting to the cold-water environment, through saliva tests.
“While the saliva results did not show any significant changes in the women’s bio-markers, this was more about feasibility than anything else, can we actually do this type of research on a larger scale, and we’ve just opened the doors.
“Clearly there are changes taking place in the physical and mental wellbeing of these women, and this needs further investigation.”
Capturing the journey was North East filmmaker Dan Prince, documenting the first ever study of saliva in relation to cold water exposure.
The study is now immortalized in a film titled ‘The Wild Sea Experiment’, as Dan captured the lives of both the scientists and the swimmers themselves.
He said: “Even though the results were not what the students were looking for, I felt their journey was just as important as the research for the story.
“I really enjoyed working with them on this. Going from the sea to the lab showed two very different worlds, but all starting from only one subject - sea swimming. This was really interesting for me to capture.”
The group, named ‘Wild Sea Women’ sees people from across the North East and Scotland take to the ocean in the early hours of the morning to reap the wellbeing benefits of cold-water swimming.
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Set up in 2020 during lockdown, the group will celebrate its third anniversary this year, as founder of the group Hayley Dorian says the group was privileged to work with the University of Sunderland.
She said: “It’s been a privilege and such a fantastic opportunity to work alongside the science team at the University of Sunderland, to help with their incredibly interesting research.
“Although it would have been great for us all to see some tangible proof of the benefits of going into the sea from this particular project, we know from our own personal experience that the sea improves our health in ways we may never understand.”
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