Health and Longevity

Here’s How Saunas Might Improve Cardiovascular Health.

A brief review of scientific studies for heat therapy on hemodynamic function and overall heart health

Introduction

As a long-term sauna user, I wrote about the benefits of dry saunas, especially in the longevity context. In previous articles, my focus was on epigenetic expressions caused by dry sauna heat.

Over two decades, regular use of dry saunas helped me reduce stress, improve sleep quality, speed up recovery from exercise, increase energy, and reduce inflammation. I shared my experience in this story.

In this post, I introduce a few research papers that I reviewed highlighting the effects of saunas on cardiovascular function leading to better heart health or even aiming to prevent potential heart conditions. As of now, the research is inconclusive. However, it looks worth checking to understand the implications.

Our circulatory system covers the heart and vessels containing blood. The respiratory system includes airways, lungs, and blood vessels. Hemodynamics refers to basic measures of cardiovascular function, such as arterial pressure or cardiac output. This paper emphasizes the fluid and solid mechanics of the system.

As I haven’t and don’t have a heart condition, I cannot comment on my experience in the sauna from cardiovascular diseases perspectives in this article.

However, since I use the sauna long term, I have an excellent score for my heart health, especially an optimal blood pressure profile. In addition, I heard many anecdotes about several benefits of heat therapy from my sauna friends, such as centenarian Algor, truck driver Alberto, entrepreneur Maggie, and scholar Jennifer.

However, we need to understand the mechanism behind these subjective feelings and learn from ongoing research. This article is not health advice. I simply share my reading from the literature for information purposes.

All resources I cite in this article are from publicly available sites so that you can review them. In addition, the abstracts of the papers are also linked to Pubmed.gov, so I assume they are reliable.

A Condensed Review of Medical Literature on Benefits of Saunas for Cardiovascular Health

Context

I came across hundreds of scientific papers reporting studies on dry saunas for many health conditions, including cardiovascular ones. Unfortunately, it is impossible to include the reviewed materials over a decade.

However, I share a few selected papers to inform my readers, including safety concerns, risks, and benefits of heat therapy, particularly dry saunas, on cardiovascular health. I still follow the literature closely and plan to provide updates in my upcoming articles.

Safety and Risks of Saunas

The first study I reviewed was in 1988. The paper informed that “several studies carried out in Finland did not confirm the adverse effects of bathing on the elderly and cardiovascular patients. The controversial results obtained in Finnish and in some foreign studies are at least partly due to the different test conditions. The typical Finnish sauna bath is safe, and even patients who have recovered from acute myocardial infarction can enjoy the sauna without incurring any harmful cardiovascular effects.”

This paper published in the Journal of Cardiopulmonary Rehabilitation in 2000 advised that “the pleasures of sauna bathing can be considered safe and without undue risk of cardiac complications even for CVD patients, providing bathing is conducted sensibly for an appropriate period of time, and extremes in temperature are voided.”

This 20-year-old paper published in the American Journal of Medicine informed that “although sauna bathing causes various acute, transient cardiovascular and hormonal changes, it is well tolerated by most healthy adults and children. Sauna bathing does not influence fertility and is safe during the uncomplicated pregnancies of healthy women. Some studies have suggested that long-term sauna bathing may help lower blood pressure in patients with hypertension and improve the left ventricular ejection fraction in patients with chronic congestive heart failure, but additional data are needed to confirm these findings.”

This study investigated the physiological, therapeutic, and adverse effects of sauna bathing with special reference to chronic diseases, medication, and special situations. “Sauna was well tolerated and posed no health risks to healthy people from childhood to old age. Baths did not appear to be particularly risky to patients with hypertension, coronary heart disease, and congestive heart failure when they were medicated and in a stable condition, excepting toxemia cases.”

Some studies mention the cardiovascular challenges and risks of exercising in the heat. For example, this study points out that ”exercise in the heat can pose a severe challenge to human cardiovascular control, and thus the provision of oxygen to exercising muscles and vital organs, because of enhanced thermoregulatory demand for skin blood flow coupled with dehydration and hyperthermia.”

This study citing 287 scientific papers, reports that “as research on heat therapy continues, it is conceivable that heat therapy will one day be prescribed by health care providers for the prevention or treatment of disease. While this idea may be premature based on the strength of current literature, physicians are starting to prescribe exposure to nature and wilderness with similar foundations of evidence. Importantly, what is really lacking is a greater number of long-term and interventional studies utilizing the various modalities of heat therapy.”

This open-access paper provided an illustration of reviewed literature.

Let’s learn from studies on these mentioned benefits.

Benefits of Heat Therapy for Cardiovascular Health

This study researching the effects of heat stress on vascular outcomes in humans points out that “Heat science is a very promising area of human physiology research, as it has the potential to contribute to approaches addressing the global cardiovascular disease burden, particularly in aging and at-risk populations, and those for whom exercise is not feasible or recommended.”

This 2018 study pointed out that “sauna bath has potential as a lifestyle treatment modality for heart failure. It is important to analyze the current evidence to help suggest paths of future study and potential for clinical application.” The study concluded that “infrared sauna bath was associated with short-term improvement in cardiac function.”

This prospective cohort study found that “higher frequency and duration of sauna bathing were each strongly, inversely, and independently associated with fatal cardiovascular disease events in middle-aged to elderly males and females.” It informs that “the frequency of sauna bathing improves the prediction of the long-term risk for cardiovascular disease mortality.”

Another prospective cohort study published in the American Journal of Hypertension informs: “Regular sauna bathing is associated with reduced risk of hypertension, which may be a mechanism underlying the decreased cardiovascular risk associated with sauna use. Further epidemiological and experimental studies could help elucidate the effects of sauna bathing on cardiovascular function.

This study investigated the combined effects of repeated sauna therapy and exercise training on subjective symptoms, cardiac function, daily activities, and ambulation capacity in patients with chronic heart failure. It concluded that “The addition of exercise training programs to repeated sauna therapy may be efficient and effective for improvement of cardiac function and daily activities for patients with chronic heart failure.”

This review of evidence by the Mayo Clinic informs that “sauna bathing, an activity used for the purposes of pleasure, wellness, and relaxation, is linked to a remarkable array of health benefits. It is a safe activity and can even be used in people with stable cardiovascular disease, provided it is used sensibly for an appropriate period of time.”

Conclusions

I reviewed many studies and shared a few of them. Those resources see heat therapy, mainly using the sauna, as relatively safe for healthy people. In addition, several studies find saunas promising for addressing cardiovascular health issues and preventing them. However, most of them recommend further research as they cannot validate the mechanism.

Another highlight from the research papers is that even though short-term studies show favorable results, there are no adequate data for the long-term benefits, specifically for the treatment and prevention of cardiovascular diseases.

In general, it is informed that “sauna baths are well tolerated and pose no risk to healthy people from infancy to old age, including healthy women in their uncomplicated pregnancy. The normal sauna bath, with moderate cool-off phases, increases the cardiac workload about as much as a brisk walk.” The advice is simple: “as a rule of thumb, if a person can walk into a sauna, he or she can walk out of it. Misuse and abuse of the sauna is another matter.”

It will be valuable to have more research investigating the mechanism of heat on the cardiovascular and respiratory systems due to the mounting reported benefits of heat therapy in the medical literature and many anecdotes.

I am optimistic that science will prove the benefits of saunas for several other conditions related to our lifespan soon. We learned that optimists live longer and happier than pessimists.

We all deserve high quality and long life. So, I wish you a joyful and healthy life. Thank you for reading my observations, research, and perspectives.

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