Saunas have remarkable health benefits. Why promote phoney ones?

It’s become one of my happy places. After a workout at the local Y, I pull into the sauna in the changing room, and just unwind for 10 or 15 minutes … if I can last the heat.

There are tremendous benefits for a sit (and not too long) in a sauna. One of the best-studied involves cardiovascular health, and we can think Finnish researchers for this; they’ve been studying it for decades, and have demonstrated that using a sauna at least four times a week can result in less heart-related disease and death.

The landmark research was published in 2015 (in JAMA, the Journal of the American Medical Association), and involved a cohort of Finnish men (women were not part of this study) whose baselines were taken in the 1980s. You can read the research here.

There are other benefits, too. Sauna can help reduce inflammation, help with blood pressure, and is a good partner with regular exercise. I find it really helpful after a workout, for instance, for getting my muscles into the next day pain-free.

So, with all that evidence of actual benefits, why do I so often read and hear about benefits that are, well, concocted?

The key one involves that potent word of the wellness world: detox.

If you believed the promotional materials of sauna vendors, spas and others, you’d think a spin in the sauna would “cleanse” your body or at least just pull out a host of heavy metals and other nasty things.

There is a grain of truth in there … but not even a grain.

Trace amounts

The appropriate word to use is “trace.” Trace, as in “almost too small to be measured.” That’s what, at most, comes out of your sweat in a sauna.

Not only that, but those trace elements would be eventually be dealt with (as most everything else is) by your kidneys and liver.

While researching this, I read how companies are selling their wares. One emphasized sweating as the main benefit, as “your skin takes over where the liver and kidneys leave off.” (If you read it carefully, they’ll acknowledge that, yep, the organs do quite a lot. This site had an interesting bit in the small print: “the evidence, while still building, is encouraging.”

Cardiovascular benefits are considerable and more supported by evidence, so why not focus on that?

Well, the marketing industry knows that sensible, long-term benefits don’t have much pizzazz.

Detox? Oh, now you might have someone’s attention.

As the website Science-Based Medicine noted, “the ‘toxin gambit’ is a marketing technique for scaring the public about the menace of unspecified toxins, then offering a treatment that will remove those vague and mysterious toxins. It is best not to reference specific amounts of specific toxins, because then they could be measured and the scam blown. Any claim to detox, therefore, is a red flag for quackery.”

Forget weight and metabolism

There are other myths about sauna, of course. The first is weight loss. While you can sweat out a few ounces in a session, you will regain that water weight quickly when you drink something. (A good reason to stay hydrated, by the way.)

A fellow at my gym told me that his sauna routine has “turbo-charged” his metabolism. While exposure to sauna can affect heart rate and blood pressure in the moment, it doesn’t change your metabolic system.

I also wonder if people are aware about the need to be sensible in a sauna. For me, 10 to 15 minutes is my limit. I made the mistake of chatting a few weeks ago and forgot how long I had been in there — and knew I had overdone it when I realized soon afterward I was dizzy and queasy. Won’t make that mistake again.

A sales pitch: the passive workout

I also wish more people knew about the cardio benefits. Maybe we need another approach.

This week, I had coffee with a high school friend who went on to a medical career. He had a good idea for promoting sauna: drop your risk of a heart attack — without the exercise.

This is true. Sauna bathing, as it’s called, is a passive benefit. Personally, I go after a workout, and take comfort in knowing that apart from helping my aging muscles, there’s a benefit for the heart. I know also that I’m getting an extra benefit. But I also know that if I skipped the weights and treadmill, I would still get a benefit from the sauna alone.

That’s a powerful thing for more people to know. A sauna alone can help your heart.

A public health thought

A final point. Saunas have the potential to have a dramatic impact on individual and public health, because of the cardiovascular benefits alone. Newfoundland and Labrador has long been among the highest incidence of heart disease in Canada, and yet accessible saunas are kind of rare. One I used to use at the Aquarena remains out of commission. I have access to the one at the Y because I pay an elevated membership fee.

Worse, it makes me uncomfortable seeing saunas marketed as a luxury item at spas, or a pricey add-on to a home (and, as mentioned above, they’re often being sold for the wrong reasons).

Yes, there’s a cost to them, but they should not just be playthings of the well-to-do.