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Credit: Getty Images for Unsplash+<\/p>\n Credit: Getty Images for Unsplash+<\/p>\n
Saunas are all the rage these days for exercise recovery and longevity, because the increased ambient heat triggers a cascade of effects in the body that can lower blood pressure and reduce inflammation.<\/p>\n
But, how many of us have access to a sauna?<\/p>\n
That\u2019s why researchers from the University of Oregon compared the effects of saunas to a simple soak in a hot bath\u2014which is much more accessible to most people\u2014and found good news for the sauna-less masses.<\/p>\n
The research was published<\/a> in the American Journal of Physiology and the authors say it was the first time that three different heat therapies were compared.<\/p>\n \u201cWe compared the most commonly utilized modalities of passive heating as they\u2019re used in everyday life and studied in scientific research,\u201d said lead author Jessica Atencio, a doctoral student in the lab of Professor Christopher Minson.<\/p>\n There\u2019s much more research into sauna bathing than hot tub bathing\u2014and most of it comes from Dr. Jari Laukkanen, a Finish cardiologist, clinician, and research scientist who has produced robust, multi-year studies<\/a> on saunas\u2014which are far more popular in Finland than elsewhere.<\/p>\n In the Oregon study, researchers monitored body temperature, blood pressure, heart rate, cardiac output (the amount of blood the heart pumps per minute), immune cell populations, and blood biomarkers of inflammation. Data was collected before, during and after subjects soaked in a hot tub, sat in dry heat, or tried far-infrared saunas.<\/p>\n The study looked at 10 men and 10 women who exercised regularly and ranged in age from 20 to 28 years old. The goal was to isolate the physiological responses to each heating method in a young, healthy population.<\/p>\n \u201cWe saw that hot water immersion was the most impactful in increasing core body temperature, which is the main stimulus for these subsequent responses,\u201d Atencio told the University of Oregon press.<\/a><\/p>\n \u201cIncreasing body temperature causes an increase in blood flow, and just the force of blood moving across your vessels is beneficial for your vascular health.\u201d<\/p>\n While the research team took blood samples from subjects after each kind of heat therapy, only hot-water immersion produced an inflammatory response as measured by the levels of inflammatory cytokines, a kind of immune signaling molecule, and immune cell populations.<\/p>\n Atencio and her team were not surprised by those results.<\/p>\n \u201cHot water immersion gives you the most robust changes in core temperature because you can\u2019t effectively dissipate heat as you can if you have contact with the air and you\u2019re sweating to cool the body,\u201d she said. \u201cWhen you\u2019re submerged in water, the sweat mechanisms aren\u2019t efficient.\u201d<\/p>\n