SaunaScape

Photo by Schwangerschaft on Flickr

The short answer is yes, in moderation.

A Canadian team published “Suggested limits to the use of the hot tub and sauna by pregnant women” in the Canadian Medical Association Journal in 1981.

Other research had established that a body temperature of 38.9°C (102°F) can be teratogenic, meaning it can cause birth or developmental defects in an unborn baby. To test this, they recruited 20 women who were of child-bearing age, but not pregnant and measured the time it took for their internal temperatures to rise to this temperature.

Average core temperatures of women of childbearing age who could stay in a bath for the given time.

In hot tubs they found it took:

• 15 minutes in a 39°C (102°F) hot tub,
• 10 minutes in a 41°C (106°F) hot tub,

They then had their volunteers spend time in an 81°C (180°F) sauna. Most women left after 13 minutes, all had left by 25 minutes due to discomfort. None had their core rise to damaging temperature.

They cite a separate study where 60 men and women bathed in a sauna for as long as possible. Of these, 20% were able to remain in the sauna long enough for their core to rise above 39°C (102°F), but data on whether these were men or women was not published with the data.

So you can take hot baths or saunas while pregnant. You just need to be careful to limit your time in them, and be sure to cool down gently and fully before taking another session. Women in Finland regularly bathe in saunas throughout their pregnancy, but limit their time in the sauna to 6-12 minutes, and they stay away from hot saunas.

“But what happens if I stay in a sauna too long?” you may ask. They researched this as well:

“Among 28 dysmorphic infants exposed to hyperthermia between 4 and 14 weeks’ gestation all the survivors had mental deficiency and most had altered muscle tone, including hypotonia, with increased deep-tendon reflexes. More of those exposed to hyperthermia at 4 to 7 weeks had facial defects. In 3 of the 28 pregnancies the hyperthermia was due to a long stay in a hot tub or sauna. In one instance the pregnant woman had remained in a tub that was reported to have a water temperature of 106°F (41.1 °C) for nearly an hour”

So, the consequences can be severe if you’re not paying attention.

[Suggested limits to the use of the hot tub and sauna by pregnant women]

Photo of a traditional sweat lodge by matthewvenn on Flickr

There is no sacrifice—only greater and more magnificent results, wealth, adventure and fulfillment.

James Arthur Ray – On his Spiritual Warrior signup page.

Last week a tragedy ensued in Sedona Arizona leaving two people dead, three in critical condition and 16 more hospitalized after a sweat lodge experience as part of a multi-day “Spiritual Warrior” self-help seminar. Coverage of the incident has ranged from articles in the New York Times to CNN to TechCrunch.

According to the coverage of the event, up to 60 people took a session in a 1450 cubic foot sweat lodge for about 2 hours on Thursday night. Causes of death are still being speculated upon, and unlike your favorite crime show, may not be known for several months. Some things are known:

• There was no temperature monitoring in the sweat lodge, so no-one really knows how hot it may have been.
• The sweat lodge was constructed from plastic tarps and blankets, and does not appear to be well ventilated. 60 people in such a space could have easily brought the oxygen level below safe limits in under 15 minutes.
• A two hour session is quite long for any kind of heat bath. There is a strong possibility that the participants suffered from dehydration and/or heat stroke in this situation.
• The leader of this ceremony, who should by all rights be responsible for the health and well-being of the participants in the sweat lodge ceremony, had other motives, apparently tweeting after the incident, “JamesARay: is still in Spiritual Warrior… for anything new to live something first must die. What needs to die in you so that new life can emerge?”
• The leader of this ceremony was probably not qualified to run this: “You’ll become privy to techniques that I searched out in the mountains of Peru, the jungles of the Amazon (and a few other places I don’t care to recall).”

How can you avoid being part of this same tragedy? Keep a few things in mind:

• Lots of people are willing to say anything to get you to part with your money, and ritualistic experiences are a part of them. Consult the forums at New Age Frauds & Plastic Shamans before signing up for something like this.
• Does the establishment you are going to use to participate in this ceremony have your well-being in mind? If, as Arizona ABC 15 reports, the event is “meant to push people’s personal limits and transcend pain,” but there isn’t a full physical for each participant and a trained medical team standing by, then you can be sure they don’t.
• Heat baths can give real benefits if used with care. However, like most things, if basic common sense is ignored, they can be very dangerous.

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

Photo posted by Dru! on Flickr

Our news ticker has been lit up recently with the news of the recent settlement of a lawsuit where an Indiana man passed away after collapsing in the sauna of his YMCA. We feel deep sympathy for the man’s friends and relatives, as losing a loved one suddenly is always difficult, especially when you’re not dealing with individuals, but through the American legal / insurance system, as was the case for this man’s poor wife. But that’s a topic for another blog.

This brings the topic to light that heat bathing can be dangerous. According to Wikipedia, raising your core body temperature just 6°F / 2°C can be life threatening. Any additional temperature rise can begin to cause brain damage. For pregnant women, the dangers to their unborn child begin sooner, with a core temperature rise to 102.0°F /38.9°C. Normal body temperature is 98.6°F / 37.0°C.

In 1991, The American Journal of Public Health published a review of “The Health Hazards of Saunas and Spas and How to Minimize Them.” Most of this article is a review of the literature published to date, much of it in the 1998 Annals of Clinical Research special edition on saunas. (We have not been able to find this publication. If you have a copy, we would be grateful if you would share this with us.)

In the study, the author recommends:

Persons with heart disease, hypertension, seizure disorders, diabetes, or significant obesity; persons who have ingested alcohol, narcotic drugs, or medications that can result in drowsiness or interfere with the body’s temperature-regulating mechanism; or persons who are over 65 years of age must limit their stays in saunas or spas to 5 or at the most 10 minutes at a time. Similar precautions should be observed by women in the first trimester of pregnancy.

Even healthy adults would be well advised not to stay in for more than 10 to 15 minutes at a time.

Fainting is the greatest hazard for heat bathers. In a test of 60 otherwise healthy adults, 5% of them fainted after a 20-minute sauna session. The test was repeated with 61 children under 12, and 3% of them fainted after a 10-minute sauna session. The author notes that if you have heart disease, or have used alcohol or drugs your risk of fainting increases.

Falling from fainting while in or exiting the bath can cause injuries by itself, or compounded by the hot stove components. Fainting with loss of consciousness, especially in an unsupervised area,  can cause more severe problems if you are not promptly removed from the heat or water.

Heart arrhythmia can  be caused by sauna bathing. This is especially true if you have heart disease, or arteriosclerosis. What many people don’t realize is that alcohol, cocaine and other drugs that affect the heart, temperature regulating mechanisms, or cause drowsiness, can also increase your risk for cardiac arrhythmia. This carries over into the hangover phase as well.

Sweating out a hangover in a sauna is a bad idea.  Evidence presented in the paper shows that if you are hung over, you are more likely to experience cardiac arrhythmia in the sauna. Even the wild children at Partiers.com admit it is as bad as “Hair of the Dog.”

As part of this study, the author polled US medical examiners about heat bathing related deaths from 1983-1988. Of the 7 sauna-related deaths in that period, 6 were in people who had used alcohol or had heart disease. All were over 12 years old, and 5 of the 7 were over 65 years old.

In that same time period, 47 spa / hot tub deaths were reported.  45% of the fatalities had used either alchohol and/or cocaine. Another 17% of these were people with heart disease.

Other hazards found in the study were:

• Diabetics taking insulin via injection can absorb it more quickly due to dilation of the blood vessels near the body surface.
• Men whose partners are trying to conceive should avoid the sauna: A single 20-minute exposure to a sauna at 176°F / 80°C can decrease sperm count for up to 5 weeks!
• Women who are or may be pregnant should be careful around the sauna: A small temperature rise in your body can damage your unborn baby, especially in the first trimester. In the last trimester, elevated body temperatures can induce labor.

I did a quick study of sauna-related injuries from 2006 and 2007, reported by hospitals to the US Consumer Products Safety Commission. There were a total of 23 injuries in those two years. All injuries were minor enough to allow the patients to be released without admission to the hospital. Most were burns, falls or fainting episodes.  However, their data does not tell the whole story, as a family in Indiana will tell you.

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.

Photo by Tsja! on Flickr

Tim Ferriss, author of the highly recommended “The 4-Hour Workweek“, added a thought-provoking post to his blog today: “How to lose 30 pounds in 24 hours.” It describes his techniques for dropping weight in advance of the weigh-in for competitive sports.

Now, most times, sauna is not a competitive sport, and even when it is, it’s not divided into weight-based classes. So what is interesting to the average sauna-goer? Water, and how your body deals with it. Some of his interesting points follow:

If you weigh 200 lbs., 120 of those pounds are water, which is distributed between three systems: blood, cell interiors (as pertaining to powerlifting, muscle fibers), and the spaces between the blood vessels and the cells dependent on them. Approximately 8% of your total water volume is contained in blood plasma, 67% is contained in the cells themselves, and 25% is found in the spaces between the two, which includes subcutaneous water.

His point being that you can “safely” lose 25% of your body weight in water. Though this is not recommended long-term:

Ball State University research has demonstrated a 7% decrease in speed over 10 kilometers by runners dehydrated by just 2%-3% of total body mass. For a 150 lb. (68 kg) strength athlete, this represents a very meager 3-4.5 lbs. (1.4-2 kg) of water loss.

Of course, the most interesting revelation for me was not about the fluids you drink, but the fluids you absorb through your skin:

The author has seen elite wrestlers make the mistake of taking a shower the morning of weigh-ins, only to find they have gained 2-3 lbs. (1-1.4 kg)!

So that shower you take before and after your sauna isn’t just cooling you down. It’s actually rehydrating you.

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.

A couple properly enjoying the sauna at Europabad near Karlsruhe, Germany

Why is it that we Americans think naked is dirty? Is it our Puritanical history? Our consumerist culture? Or the years of repression of our sexual urges by Hollywood censors? Why else would there so many forums and books written about our collective hang-ups being naked with friends, family or strangers, and especially those of our own gender it makes you think that Tobias Fünke had it right…

Or not.

Naked is the best way to enjoy a sauna, steam bath, or hot tub. That’s not just my opinion. Millions of Finns, Germans, Swedes, Russians, Koreans and Japanese feel that way too. It’s also a proven fact for a number of reasons:

Your skin is your largest organ. It is the first line of defense protecting your body from harm. One of the weapons at its disposal is the lowly sweat gland. The sweat gland produces a clear secretion that is mostly water, but contains some electrolytes (like salt) and waste products, and discharges it directly on the surface of the skin.

Sweat serves three purposes: Cooling, by the water in the sweat evaporating; Protection, since the water dilutes contaminants that contact your skin and the salt kills microorganisms that try to grow on it; and Excretion as certain toxins in your body are most efficiently eliminated through sweat. Using a sauna or other heat bath exercises your skin. Isn’t it best to do it as nature intended?

It’s not your skin, it’s your clothes that are dirty. Fabric of any kind is a very good filter. It captures and holds some of everything it comes into contact with. It starts with the fibers themselves, especially synthetic fibers, dyes, detergent, bleach, fabric softeners, chlorine from the pool, airborne pollutants, perfumes plus any microorganisms that the fibers come into contact with all stay trapped in your clothes. Now, as you start to sweat, the fabric against your body traps that sweat preventing it from migrating away. All that other junk trapped in your fabic becomes mobile in the water and trapped against your skin. Your skin can act as a two-way street for that junk in the same way it can for “patch” medicines.

If you’ve ever had to maintain a hot tub, you know what I’m talking about… Body film clearing enzymes, anti-foaming agents, scum removers… all of these are to deal with the contaminants mostly trapped in our swimsuits.

Chlorine and Bromine vapors are irritants to your eyes, mucous membranes, and respiratory tract. Chlorine and Bromine are commonly dissolved in water as a disinfectants to keep public pools clean. However, when you heat water, these compounds want to become vapors. The amount of Chlorine that water will hold decreases by a factor of 7 from swimming pool temperatures of 75°F / 24°C to sauna temperatures of 200°F / 93°C while the tendency for Chlorine to vaporize increases by a factor of 6! Exposure to low levels of Chlorine or Bromine gas can cause irritation to your eyes, and the mucous membranes in your throat and lungs. You may not be susceptible to these irritants, but the stuff coming off your swimsuit may be a hazard to your fellow sauna-goers’ health. (If you miss P-Chem, there are some charts here.)

Heat is transferred to your body more efficiently. Much of the heat that you feel in the sauna comes from IR radiation. IR is light. The more of your body it can see, the more heat that you feel transferred to your body. Something thin like a swimsuit gets in the way of the light and cuts down on the heat that reaches you. Something thicker like a towel or robe cuts down on the heat you receive more dramatically.

Of course, there are some rules of etiquette to be followed:

This doesn’t mean you sit bare-assed on the benches! Unless they are your benches. Sit on a towel, please. If you’re going to lay down, bring a big enough towel for you. If you’re going to sit on the upper benches, put a towel under your feet too. Look at the photo with this post, and you will see that these two sauna goers have their benches completely covered. I don’t want to sit on your sweat stain when I get into the sauna, and I’d bet you don’t want to sit on mine either. This goes for any other places you might sit while naked, save one.

Leave your cell phone in your locker! Most cell phones have cameras on them these days. I don’t care how important your e-mail, text message, or friend request on Facebook is, but it can wait until you’re in a place where people are fully dressed. Most cell phones have cameras on them these days. When you start playing with a cell phone somewhere where I’m naked, I assume you’re taking a picture of my junk. I don’t like that.

The sauna is a place to relax and cleanse yourself. Why are you polluting your (and my) experience by pulling out your crackberry.

So, the next time you’re at a sauna, steam room or hot tub where you can let it out, do it. You’ll feel better and it’s better for your body too.