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by Pertti Olavi Jalasjaa
The citizens of Finland aren’t the only folks who know about the terrific benefits of sauna therapy. Around the globe, doctors, researchers and other professionals have discovered the tremendous value of using sauna heat to help increase the human body’s white blood cell count, stimulate its immune system, facilitate detoxification, and produce a state of general relaxation that is vital to the healing process.
In many countries, experts continue to research the therapeutic properties of the sauna. For example, studies by Dr. Chuwa Tei, professor of medicine and chair of the department of internal medicine at Japan’s Kagoshima University, and his colleagues have demonstrated saunas’ usefulness in treating heart patients.
In one study, Tei and his colleagues compared 25 men with at least one risk factor for heart disease, such as diabetes, high blood pressure, high cholesterol or smoking, with a group of 10 healthy men. Each study participant spent 15 minutes in a 140-degree Fahrenheit (60-degree Celsius) dry sauna, followed by 30 minutes in a bed covered with blankets, once a day for two weeks. The researchers then measured how well the participants’ blood vessels expanded and contracted, a sign of the health of the vessels. The group with at least one risk factor demonstrated improvement in these functions. The researchers also found that the sauna therapy lowered participants’ blood pressure slightly. Other benefits included decreases in body weight and fasting blood sugar levels. The results of the study should be encouraging to anyone concerned about blood vessel diseases like atherosclerosis (hardening of the arteries) and erectile dysfunction.
In earlier studies, Tei and his colleagues demonstrated that sauna therapy improved the blood vessel function in hamsters with chronic heart failure. The hamsters that received sauna therapy also lived about three weeks longer than those that didn’t receive sauna therapy.
German researchers recently studied 22 kindergarten children who took weekly sauna baths and compared them to a group of children that did not take any sauna baths. Both groups were followed for 18 months and closely monitored for any occurrence of ear infections, colds, or upper respiratory problems. The researchers found that the children who did not take the weekly sauna baths took twice as many sick days as their counterparts.
Other findings suggest that it may be more than the heat of a sauna that is so advantageous to human health. Tests have indicated that the practice of tossing or splashing water on heated rocks in a traditional Finnish sauna produces a high quantity of negative ions in the air. Research has concluded that air abundant with negative ions offers great benefits, while a lack of negative ions or a higher ration of positive to negative ions in the air we breathe can cause physical harm.
And while a June 2001 edition of The St. Petersburg Times quotes Dr. Timothy Meade, a U.S.-educated doctor who works at the American Medical Center in the Russian city, as saying, “I don’t think studies have been done where 10 Russians take a banya every day for 20 years and 10 Russian people don’t,” the newspaper does state that “almost anyone who experiences the banya will tell you that there is a certain deeply felt sense of healthiness - what the Russians refer to as a kaif, or high - after a couple of hours” in the sauna bath.
Throughout Finland, Japan, Germany, Russia, Canada, the U.S., and numerous other countries of the world, much evidence and countless personal accounts exist to substantiate the widely held conviction that regular sauna bathing can be both an effective therapy for people burdened with afflictions and conditions like arthritis and hypertension and a formidable measure of prevention against colds, flu and other health threats.
Regardless of where you may live, if you are sick and want to get healthy or if you are healthy and want to stay that way, talk to a qualified health professional about the magnificent merits of the sauna bath. Countless studies concur that you can feel better and heal better in the soothing warmth of a sauna.
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