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Research Suggests That Saunas Help You Live Longer
jones_supa writes A study of Finnish men suggests that frequent sauna baths may help you live longer. Previous research has suggested that saunas might improve blood vessel function and exercise capacity, or even lower blood pressure in patients with hypertension. The new study links long, hot sauna baths with more benefits, including fewer deaths from heart attacks, strokes, various heart-related conditions and other causes. The study tracked 2315 Finnish men for nearly 20 years on average. Most participants used saunas at least once weekly. Those who used them four to seven times weekly received the greatest benefits. The study published in JAMA Internal Medicine wraps up by saying that further studies are warranted to establish the potential mechanism that links sauna bathing and the aforementioned cardiovascular benefits.
A sauna isn't a hot tub. At least not in Finland. It's sweating in a hot room.
Where a real sauna is typically kept around 90C/194F (and some hotter), an American "sauna" is rarely above 60C/140F, and usually less. And they wear swim trunks and bikinis in it.
In a real sauna, you can't wear clothes, and particularly not synthetics, because it's too hot.
The funny thing is that a good hot sauna feels less hot. Your body goes into sauna mode, something it can never do at an American "sauna". You only feel the warmth in your lungs, or if you touch some new piece of furniture. I have often sat with teeth clattering and goose bumps in a sauna, because my ambient temperature sensors had turned off.
Half an hour in a real sauna is something I truly miss.
There have been many, many studies on this matter over the past couple decades. A couple of my favorite meta-aggregators of these studies are Rogue Health and Fitness and Mark's Dailly Apple (yeah, he's a paleo advocate, but he's also a former top competitive runner, Ironman winner, and currently a sculpted buff dude in his 60s -- and his wife only a few years younger looks like a fitness model). Even more interesting, look into guys like Art Devany. He and his wife are in their mid-70s, yet fitter than most people in their 40s.
Basically, the health promises of the 70s-80s were found to be false along several axes. The most notorious being recommendations for the low-fat, high-carb diet, but also the whole jogging/aerobics craze that started in the late 70s has been found to be empirically a failure. This is what led to the renewed interest in weight-lifting and other strength training. Long-duration, plodding exercise really isn't ideal to longevity. Running 10 miles a day used to be thought the peak of fitness, but really it results in muscle atrophy, heart strain, joint problems, etc...
And the problem with focusing on athletes is generally that they overdo it. Athletes are people singularly focused on *winning* not on health and longevity. Athletes will gladly trade a decade of life for a short-term competitive edge. This is what Mark Sisson (Mark's Daily Apple above) found. His competitive running had him constantly sick and/or injured. He scaled his workout way back, stopped the long-distance running, and focused more on short-duration high-intensity exercise to stimulate the hormesis/recovery cycle, and specifically worked on gaining muscle mass.
There is sort of a golden mean to exercise, recovery, muscle mass, strength, etc... And generally it looks about like the "fitness model" ideal for women and the wrestler physique for men. Muscular but not freakish. Slim but not skinny, low body fat, but not veins showing everywhere... you get the idea.
Side note: I was flying back from SCALE 13x last week, and ended up sitting next to a cardiologist who has been doing research in these areas. His synopsis: we should all be lifting weights, and lifting *heavy*.
Yes really. Anecdotal evidence is still evidence. Consult a dictionary. You asked for citations, which I did not have at hand, but directed you to a couple sites that have lots of them. Knock yourself out.
There is no such thing as conclusive proof in any of these areas. I tend to prefer empiricism and general pattern-recognition to theory-directed research because in the area of health it is so fraught with false positives, statistical failures, presuppositions and downright fraud due to industry influence. But if you browse through PubMed or PLOS for research in these areas, you will be hard-pressed to find negative implications for weightlifting or strength training. Positive implications abound.
If that were true, I've been cooked quite a couple of times :-)
BUT - a sauna needs to be VERY dry (less than 20% humidity). Normal humidity and 90C would indeed cook you.
BAH, humbug.
it's quite the contrary, we (finns) throw water to stove, which boils immediately forming steam (löyly) which fills the 'sauna room' (löylyhuoneen).
Humidity is well over 80% there in well warmed up sauna all the time and when that water is thrown (half a pint of more) it will quite rapidly go above 90% humidity.
If you have been in a place where someone calls it sauna and it's unlike that, it's not a proper finnish sauna, not even close.