FoundMyFitness - #058 Aliquot #2: Q&A Mashup - Sauna

Episode Date: September 2, 2020

Get a sample of our new premium member's content, known as Aliquots, by listening to this in-depth Q&A mashup on Sauna use. What's an aliquot, you may ask? Aliquots are special, curated segments prepared and distributed to premium members via the premium members podcast feed. In this episode, you'll learn: (00:00) Introduction (01:41) Evidence supporting sauna use for health (04:09) How Finnish humid saunas can reduce viral illness (08:40) Sauna and hot bath use during the COVID-19 pandemic (15:07) Rhonda's sauna routine Learn more about our premium podcast feed The Aliquot by clicking here. Become a FoundMyFitness premium member to get access to exclusive episodes, emails, live Q+A's with Rhonda and more: https://www.foundmyfitness.com/crowdsponsor

Hi, my friends. Today's episode is our second special Aliquot mashup episode, which features a compilation of sauna-related topics taken from several Q&A episodes over the last couple of years. This episode covers many topics related to sauna use, including implications of sauna bathing on risk of pneumonia and respiratory illnesses, finish sauna, humidity, and the immune system, the effects of sauna and hot baths on heat shock proteins. Temperature and duration of sauna bathing to obtain, the cardiovascular benefits. My personal sauna practices for longevity. Comparing the efficacy and safety of infrared saunas versus traditional saunas. Heat stress responds from various types of heat stress modalities, including hot baths. How whole body hypothermia similar to sauna improves drug-resistant

depression. How sauna use mimics smarter at cardiovascular exercise. Time, temperature, and frequency to get longevity benefits and heat shock proteins. sauna use while fasting. It sounds stressful, but someone asked about it, so we talk about it. Whether or not sauna use is helpful for tension headaches, and so much more. This is a special preview of the Alawquot members-only podcast. For a full timeline with time codes for each topic and access to the entire episode, head over to foundmyfitness.com forward slash Aalquot. That's A-L-I-Q-O-T, A-A-O-T, A-A-Quot. If you are a premium member, you can also find this entire episode with a timeline on your

private podcast feed. Now on to the Aliquot. Hope you guys enjoy. Some of the other things I'm trying to do are the sauna, four to seven times a week, 20 minutes at least 174 degrees Fahrenheit. So I've shared the study on social media about the sauna reducing the risk for, you know, chronic acute respiratory illnesses, including pneumonia. So men who used the sauna three times a week were 27% less likely to develop pneumonia than those who did the sauna once a week.

And those that used it four to seven times a week were 41% less likely to develop pneumonia. And this was after adjusting for like a million other potential confounding factors, including asthma, physical activity, socioeconomic status, LDL levels, hypertension, smoking, just a lot of other things that were. that could possibly influence the data. There's other studies that have shown that the sauna bathing has been shown to reduce the incidence of common colds. Now, this was a, I'm writing a review article on the sauna, which I'm hoping to submit in the next month or two. So I wrote a section on the lungs and respiratory function. So I was kind of diving back in the literature, you know, sometimes back into the 80s. or even sometimes further.

But there's some interesting studies out there showing that intervention trials with the sauna was able to reduce the incidence of common colds and people that did the sauna once a week. And this was a trial that was done. It was a six-month-long trial, so it was quite long. And it actually took three months of doing the sauna one to two times a week before there was an effect on reducing the incidence of calm and cold. So it wasn't a sort of immediate thing. It took some time. Other studies have shown, and these again are older studies, they've shown that that frequent

sauna use may decrease pulmonary congestion and lead to other improvements in lung function, including vital capacity, tidal volume, minute ventilation, and force expatory volume. Another study using not typical finish sauna, but weigh-on therapy, which is infrared sauna, was also shown to improve lung function in people with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease or C-O-P-D. So a sort of interesting thing is that many, but not all of those studies, were out of Finland or were using a Finnish sauna, which typically is a humid sauna. So in Finland, they're often throwing water over these hot rocks and they're creating steam and they're increasing the humidity. And the reason I find this interesting is because there have been some studies. So there have been quite a few studies showing that viruses in general, influenza, particularly is a virus that's studied quite often,

that influenza viruses transmit less effectively in humid conditions. In other words, in dry conditions, they're able to better, they have a better transmission rate, the R-not. But that's not what I found most interesting. That's that's sort of been known. And it's thought that's one contributing factor among many other contributing factors as to why viruses like influenza virus and respiratory viruses seem to circulate more during dry or winter months, right, as opposed to the summer months when it's more humid. The other interesting factor comes from an animal study. And the animal study basically took two groups of animals and they changed the humidity within the animal's cages and they exposed them to influenza.

And what they found was that the animals that were in the low humidity cages, there was pretty profound effects on the immune system. So lower humidity prevented celia from removing viral particles and also mucus. Low humidity reduced the ability of airway cells to repair damage caused by the virus in the lungs. And low humidity prevented signaling proteins like interferons that are released by cells that are affected by viruses to basically alert nearby cells that viruses are here and to kind of, you know, up their immune response.

So there was a variety of ways in which low humidity seemed to give. viruses an advantage, not by, you know, allowing viruses to transmit better, but by literally affecting the host immune function, right? So I found that very interesting, particularly with the sauna data where, you know, there's, there seems to be a pretty robust effect on preventing ammonia, pneumonia, and other respiratory illnesses and effects on lungs. And a lot of the times the saunas used do have a humid in those studies. They were, they were, they were, finish saunas oftentimes are humid. David P is asking in the chat,

would mold accumulate more in a steam sauna than a dry sauna? Yeah, probably steam rooms have to be really clean quite frequently. I mean, obviously, that's pretty, the problem with humidity, having a humid house or humid anything is mold, right? So David is also asking about the temperature of the sauna. Most gyms don't, he says most gyms don't go up to 170 degrees Fahrenheit. Some of them go up to 140. So 140 sounds like infrared.

That's, that's, if it's only going up to 140, that sounds like an infrared, not a dry sauna. But regardless, typically longer durations are required if the temperature is lower. So there have been, so if let's say, for example, we're trying to look at the, the cardiovascular benefits of sonnas, of which there are many. There have been studies in using a more finished type of sauna or even dry saunas where the temperature is 170, about 174, degrees Fahrenheit and staying in there for 20 minutes seems to be the key. whereas there are also studies that have been done with infrared zanas that get up to about 140. But those studies, people are staying in there, are staying under the heat stress for about 45 minutes. So more than twice as long as people that were in a hotter sauna.

So typically you can make up for lack of heat with longer duration. And there's some people mentioning the sauna. I am going into great, great detail on the sauna in this upcoming COVID-19 Q&A. I'm fortunate right now to have a home sauna, and I realize many people don't have that luxury. And with gyms closed right now, it's really impossible for people that don't have a sauna at home to use a sauna. and the good news is that hot baths have been shown to increase heatchalk proteins, heat chock protein 70, for example, which heat chock proteins play a major role in boosting immunity, innate immune system, and also in increasing immune cells.

So I'm going to be talking about several studies where using the sauna not only protects against pneumonia It protects again COPT. It actually even can help treat COPD and also some older studies showing that it can protect against common cold. Although those studies, it seemed as though frequency was very important and the protection wasn't shown until three months after three months of frequently using the sauna. So it wasn't like an overnight thing. And I'm going to be talking about some studies. showing that that sauna use increases certain white blood cell and neutrophil numbers as well, as well as the mechanisms like heat chock proteins. So I guess Costco may still be selling

sauna, so maybe you can still somehow get a sauna, although I would be very cautious going into any sort of store at all, certainly wearing some kind of mask, any kind of, any kind of of masks that you make at home or if you have any other types of masks is best. I personally am staying out of stores 100% right now. And I think that the best thing that we can all do right now is stay home as much as we can. But my point was that I do think there's pretty convincing evidence that the sauna boost the immune system and the sauna is really important for lung function. I've been writing a review article on the sauna and I had a whole section on immunity and lung function. And so I sort of refined that

section a little bit more and also added in some other modalities of heat stress like the hot baths, which have been shown to increase heat shock proteins. And I think that so in this one study, people that sat in a hot bath and I will cite the exact temperature numbers when I record this podcast next week. I believe it was 100 and something degrees Fahrenheit, but they were sitting in it from the waist down for an hour. Now, that's a long time to have to sit in the hot water to have to have the 50% increase in heat shock proteins, and also elevations in core body temperature, which, by the way, happens during a fever response. Part of the fever response is to activate, you know, the immune system. And part of the way it does that is by activating heat shock proteins,

which become active during when you have a fever. So those things also get activated when you are going into a sauna or in a hot bath. So I mentioned there people are sitting in the hot bath from the waist down. The question is, what if they are submerged from the shoulders down? What if you lay down in the bath and more of the surface, of your surface areas being exposed to the heat? well, anyone that sat in a jacuzzi from their shoulders down versus just sitting in, you know, when you sit on the stairs and you sit and you're from your waist down, no, you get much more hot, much quickly, more quickly when you are more submerged in the hot water. So do I think that you can cut that time and half possibly more by by submerging from the shoulders down?

I think that is very, very likely for someone that can, that does not have access to a sauna and can most people do have bathtubs at their house. So I think that most people can at least do hot baths. Personally, right now I've been doing the sauna five days a week. It's been critical for my mental health. Also, I'm not getting as much aerobic activity as I usually do. I usually do a lot of outdoor running. And I'm even, I've even been having to kind of cut that down a little bit just because I don't want to my encounters with people, you know, even outside, I'm trying to kind of minimize all that. So the sauna, because the sauna mimics aerobic exercise, he's been just really key for my overall health. And, you know, hot baths, hot baths do a similar thing.

Physiological mechanisms kick in. You can elevate your core body temperature. You get increased blood flow, heart rate increases, many of the same things happen. that happened with a sauna, that happened during aerobic exercise. Afterwards, you know, similar endpoints also happen where you have, you know, improved heart rate variability. You have improved lower blood pressure, lower resting heart rate. This has been shown in randomized studies that have compared moderate aerobic activity to a 20-minute sauna session. And again, I think that there is a place for hot baths in this, steam showers as well, if you have one of those,

you know, any, any modality that you have at home and have access to, safe access to, to get that heat stress, I think is something that is important to do now if you can. And as David is mentioning here in the chat, if you are using hot baths, you may have to sort of, you know, refill the water and make it, make it warmer every, you know, 10 or so minutes. or 15 minutes depending on, I mean, when you're, when you're sitting in a really, really hot bath, I mean, you get really hot and you get uncomfortable. So, so basically, it's pretty, it's pretty obvious. Huskers is asking if I'm still doing 30 minutes. So the sauna I'm using now actually is much hotter than the sauna I was previously using at my gym. So right now,

The sauna that I'm using is, gets up to, technically can get up to 190 degree, 194 degrees Fahrenheit. When I get in it, it's around 186. It's really hot Fahrenheit. And I also have water that I pour over the hot rocks, which increases the humidity. So according to my hygrimometer, my humidity detector, it's, about 40% humidity. I get, I can get it up to. And when I, when I, when I keep doing that repeatedly, I mean, it is just so hot. And so I'm in there for like, you know, between between 15 to 20 minutes, depending on the temperature and the humidity. Like, sometimes I'm, I've got a lot, a lot going on. And so I'm

just making it really humid and it's really hot and I'm in there for 15 minutes. And I'm telling you, I'm wiped. I mean, I feel like I had just gone on a, you know, three mile run, you know, doing, doing, doing, you know, 80% max heart rate, you know, so, so, so, so that's what I'm doing right now. Someone's asking, Smell is asking, shared sauna in my apartment building, yay or nay, I would say right now, you, you want to avoid anything shared, any type of shared gym or sauna. You do not want to be in a close place with other people. So I would say that that is an unfortunate, it's an unfortunate thing that I would bypass. People are asking the brand of sauna I use.

I got my sauna through. Thanks for listening to this preview of the Aliquot episode, featuring clips covering some of the many health benefits associated with sauna use and briefly describing special considerations for children. If you enjoyed this preview and would like to listen to the full episode, please consider signing up to become a Found My Fitness premium member at foundmyfitness.com forward slash aliquot, Aliquot, Aliquot. Not only will you get complete access to our private podcast feed delivering new episodes of the Aliquot, you'll also get access to live monthly Q&As with me, Lifetime Genetic Report Updates, Members-only emails, and more.

Finally, if you enjoyed today's preview, we encourage you to share it with your family and your friends. Thank you so much. Hey, one last thing, guys. I just want to make it clear these members' Q&As that this content originated from are really meant to be a discussion of the science. It's definitely not meant to be diagnostic or as a treatment for any health condition. This podcast does not establish a client-patient relationship.

So just keep that in mind. Talk to you guys soon.