SaunaScape

photo by whoaitsaimz on Flickr

You can’t explore “sauna” on the internet very long without coming across infomercial style weight loss claims: “Lose weight fast! With our new Super Sauna, you’ll be burning up to 600 calories every half hour, all without moving a muscle! Act now! Operators are standing by!”

Meanwhile, the fitness gurus, like Chris Klebba all say “the effects of saunas on weight loss are due to a loss of water from sweating, not actual fat loss. Bottom line, forget it for fat loss.”

So who’s right? Well in a strange twist of science, both of them are wrong! Saunas do help with weight loss by helping the body to equalize the hormones that control our desire to overeat. Interestingly, they also help those who don’t eat enough to eat more. Better still, regular sauna users have better circulation, which can help prevent  atherosclerosis, and reverse the effects of coronary heart disease.

These are conclusions from a 2003 study that was conducted at Kagoshima University in Japan, where a team of researchers studied the effects of thermal therapy on lifestyle diseases. The study began as a test to see if heat bathing could be used as a way to improve the health of patients with congestive heart failure. The team noted improvement in both the symptoms and cardiac function of their subjects after a single session, and continued improvement with additional, regular sessions.

When they examined the underlying mechanism of these improvements, they hypothesized that a similar improvement in the health of paitents with lifestyle-related diseases such as hypertension, diabetes, high cholesterol, smoking and obesity could also be improved with sauna therapy.

They tested a group of “at risk” people, who each had one or more of these conditions, and were not receiving treatment for any of these. What they found surprised them. After 2 weeks of daily sauna therapy at 140°F / 60°C, where their body temperature was elevated by 2°F / 1°C for 30 minutes, they found that blood pressure was significantly lowered.

Surprisingly, fasting plasma glucose, and body weight also went down for the group.

To study this further, they repeated the study with a group of 5 men and 5 women. For 2 weeks, they all ate a controlled diet of 1800 calories / day, and each took a single sauna session each day. At the end of the period, all 10 had lost weight, with their collective body fat falling from an average of 42% to 37%.

They did not attribute these results to calorie burn in the sauna, but instead to a better regulation of the body’s hormones that control appetite. They found that during the period, none of the subjects were not hungry as quickly, and did not tend to overeat or snack between meals.

The opposite effect was seen in coronary heart disease patients who were under eating as a result of their disease. Regular sauna sessions improved their appetite, and increased the quantity of food they consumed.

For the infrared marketers out there: Yes, this study was done in an infrared sauna, but they cited other similar research that was done using a hot bath. So these effects are not just for IR Sauna users.

[Clinical Implications of Thermal Therapy in Lifestyle-Related Diseases] via Stephen Colmant

Utah cops sweating out their toxins from Methamphetamine exposure in a sauna. (Fox News)

The Salt Lake City Tribune this morning reported that the Utah legislature just allocated $100,000 for 20 Utah police officers to undergo the detox program from L. Ron Hubbard’s 1977 book, Clear Body Clear Mind. The program is for officers who have served raiding or dimantling meth labs. The Tribune reports that 39 officers have undergone the treatment already, and there is a waiting list of more than 80 officers.

In the story, they quote several current and former narcotics officers who have undergone the treatment. The officers quoted found that the treatment has been effective: “Lt. Richard Ferguson of the Utah County Major Crimes Task Force estimates he was exposed to 100 meth labs in an eight-year span. He suffered from headaches and acid reflux until he underwent the treatment. ’Scientifically, I guess there’s something to it because I don’t have to take a prescription anymore,’ Ferguson said.”

In November 20007, Fox News reported on the beginning of the program: “Lt. Al Acosta of the Utah Department of Public Safety blames his muscle tremors, headaches, chest pains and difficulty breathing on the more than 300 labs he’s raided in his nearly 20-year career. He said one whiff of his sweat [while in the sauna]- with bouquets of ammonia or cat urine, depending on the day – is enough to tell him he’s expelling those chemicals. ‘Whoever the skeptical people are [should] come here and just take a whiff of the odors that we’re putting off,’ Acosta said. ‘I don’t think we normally smell this way.’”

One interesting note in the story is their quote of a state-funded study looking for a link between the detox program and meth contamination. They note that “science has yet to determine whether the saunas, exercise and improved diet are simply making cops generally healthier, or are actually tackling illnesses caused by meth exposure.

The Utah program, administered by the American Detoxification Foundation, uses a 36-day regimen for their detox program.

The Scientology Connection. The Tribune reports that there is involvement between practitioners of Scientology and the use of this detox program. Private donations have raised funds for the 5 officers currently undergoing the program, and “plans are underway for two ‘Hollywood stars’ to hold fundraisers to treat more Utah cops.” They also reported “actor Tom Cruise, also a Scientologist, raised money for New York City firefighters to undergo detoxification after the Sept. 11 attacks. ”

The Utah legislature, despite the criticism, sees its benefits. “[This detox program] was portrayed as a medical cleansing of contaminants that they picked up doing their public service,” said Utah Senate President Mike Waddoups. “If somebody had pointed it out as the Hubbard program and it’s some sort of a spiritual cleansing, I think it would have died on the spot.”

[More state funds quietly budgeted to help cops sweat to health] The Salt Lake City Tribune

Omron Automatic Blood Pressure Monitor

Hypertension, or high blood pressure (HBP) is a condition that affects about 30% of the US population. The US National Institute of Health (NIH) estimates that 90% of middle aged adults face the risk of developing high blood pressure in their lifetimes.

Klafs, the German manufacturer of high-style sauna installations, recently reported on research done by Dr. Hans-Joachim Winterfeld at the Charité University clinic in Berlin, where he proved that regular use of a sauna can have a positive effect on the health of high blood pressure patients. High blood pressure affects about 16% of all Germans.

From 1996-1998, Dr. Winterfield tested 40 patients diagnosed with High Blood Pressure who were not otherwise treated with medication.  These patients visited the sauna at least twice per week. During each visit, they would have two 8-10 minute sessions in the sauna, sitting on the middle bench, cooling down as needed between sessions. He found that:

• 60% of the patients had their symptoms improve. These people further reported that their sleep quality and alertness levels improved during their treatment period.
• 38% of the patients had their blood pressure return to normal without any additional treatment!

The sauna that Dr. Winterfield used in his study was a Sanarium, or steam sauna. This sauna operates at a temperature between 46-60°C or 115-140°F, much lower than the typical dry sauna temperature. The relative humidity is much higher, between 40% and 55%, but not as high as the humidity in the steam room. For post-sauna cooling he recommended a gentle method to his patients, for example a rain shower at about 13°C or 55°F.

Before adding sauna to your regimen you should discuss it with your doctor, especially if you are taking any type of blood-pressure reducing medicine: Many of these medicines directly influence the dilation of your blood vessels and your body’s water content. Furthermore, elevated temperatures may impact how these medicines work.

[SANARIUM helps patients with high blood pressure]

Dr. Oz and Oprah with an infrared sauna on her set.

Oprah had her regular medical guest, Dr. Oz on yesterday for her “Extreme Life Extension” episode.  In the same episode where he presented novel concepts like tissue regeneration, restricted calorie diets, hyperbaric oxygen chambers and custom-grown replacement organs, Dr. Oz presented an infrared sauna as an extreme life extension tool.

On the set, Dr. Oz had Oprah try out the sauna (dressed to the nines of course):

After a few minutes in the sauna, Oprah says she’s starting to feel the heat. Dr. Oz says the high temperature helps lower blood pressure and increase blood circulation. “It gets your heart to beat faster, and it burns calories,” Dr. Oz says. “It raises your metabolism a little bit, and also when you sweat, you sweat out toxins through the skin.”

As part of the piece Dr. Oz explained that the sauna helps you “burn 700 calories…without lifting a finger.”

I’m not a huge fan of infrared saunas, as I think you’re missing out on a lot of the sauna experience with them. (I’ll be writing more about this in the near future.) Another TV doctor, Dr. Weil, agrees with me on this topic. However, any show that features a sauna with 8.5 million daily viewers is a great help to promoting the sauna culture to more people.

I haven’t been able to find a video of this segment posted online anywhere. If you know of one please leave the link in the comments.

Washout of cocaine during a sauna detox regimen at Narconon

There has been a lot of buzz on the celebrity scandal sites lately about Katie Holmes using a sauna detox regimen to prepare herself for her next pregnancy. These being gossip rags, they are heavy on innuendo and drama and light on the facts.

The program was developed by Scientology founder L. Ron Hubbard, and is detailed in his book Clear Body Clear Mind. Since then, it has developed a serious medical following. The program has participants:

• Perform some moderate aerobic exercise to stimulate blood flow,
• Take a high dose of immediate release Niacin to mobilize the fatty acids in their body,
• Sit in a relatively low temperature sauna (150°F / 65°C) for up to 5 hours per day, exiting as needed to shower, both to cool down and rinse toxins excreted through sweat off your skin.
• Participants drink lots of fluids during their regimen, and take prescribed doses of vitamins and cold-pressed oils to compensate for other nutrients lost in the detox procedure.

This detox regimen has been used to remove toxins from both drug abuse and environmental exposure.

Narconon uses the detox program in their addiction recovery program for drug addicts. Their philosophy is that with drugs stored in your fat, you will constantly be getting a low dose of drugs into your system. As long as these are present, you can’t make other changes to eliminate drugs from your life. The chart that accompanies this post shows a case study of a former cocaine addict in their program. At the beginning of the program, the participant had no traces of cocaine in his sweat or urine. Within a few days of starting the program, the levels returned to those of a habitual user, then over a period of 50 days, all the remaining cocaine washed out of their system.

Sauna detoxification has also been used for people exposed to environmental contaminants, for instance 9/11 rescue workers, and Chernobyl residents.

If you think you have heavy contaminant levels in your system, DON’T ATTEMPT A SAUNA DETOX WITHOUT MEDICAL SUPERVISION. Done properly, a detox can cause a sudden release of contaminants into your bloodstream. These can give you the same affects as your original exposure, or worse. If you’re not properly replacing the other necessary things that the detox is removing from your system, you could be creating new problems for yourself.

Today’s New York Times reports on this study performed by a team of Austrian researchers that studied the incidence of common colds in a population of 50 people over six months. Half of the population took saunas regularly, the other half was the control, and were not permitted to use the sauna during the test period.

The study concluded that the sauna bathing population had significantly fewer cases of the common cold than the non-sauna bathing population. After three months, the sauna bathing population had half as many incidents of the cold as the control. Both groups, after they contracted a cold, had no difference in the duration and severity of the symptoms.

If I can cut my colds in half, can I deduct my sauna addiction as a qualified medical expense? The IRS says no.

[PubMed.gov] via the New York Times

After a session in the sauna, I just feel good. I can’t explain why, just that it does.

Stephen Colmant, a licensed Psychologist based in North Carolina, and Allan Eason, a doctoral candidate at Oklahoma State, a have spent their careers examining the physiology of sweat bathing on individuals alone and in groups. Colmant wrote his doctoral thesis on the topic, and built a custom sauna designed specifically for group therapy sessions. They have posted their research and related articles online at PsychSymposium.com.

Their “Sweat Therapy Theoretical Model” says that a sauna’s unique form of exercise sweating without focus on muscle coordination, focus on self regulation as the heat from the sauna changes from pleasurable early in the experience to a focus on coping with the more intense perception of heat, metaphorical elements of the sauna experience including the challenge of man vs. fire while naked (or nearly so), and the shared interpersonal experience of enduring the heat with others with an increased awareness of others’ well-being in the heat interact to produce positive effects on the mind, body and spirit.

[PsychSymposium.com]