The Surprising Health Benefits of Saunas

Spending time in the sauna may help lower your chances of developing high blood pressure, say the authors of a recent study in the American Journal of Hypertension. Finnish men in the study who used the sauna four to seven times a week for about 19 minutes each time cut their risk of high blood pressure nearly in half, compared to those who visited just once a week. The study authors, from the University of Eastern Finland, published research in 2015 linking sauna bathing with a reduced risk of death from cardiovascular disease and sudden cardiac events. Now, they say, they may have one potential explanation for those early findings. For the study, researchers followed 1,621 middle-aged men living in Finland, where sauna bathing is very common, for an average of 22 years. Only men with normal blood pressure, and who reported visiting a sauna at least once a week, were included in the analysis. Over the next two decades, about 16% of those men developed high blood pressure, defined as higher than 140/90 mmHg. The men who took just one sauna bath a week were at the highest risk of developing high blood pressure, the authors found after adjusting for factors such as body mass index, smoking, alcohol intake, cardiorespiratory fitness and socioeconomic status. That risk was reduced by 24% for men who took two to three a week, and by 46% for men who took four to seven, compared to once-a-week sauna bathers. Co-author Dr. Jari Laukkanen, a cardiologist and professor of medicine at ...
Source: TIME.com: Top Science and Health Stories - Category: Consumer Health News Authors: Tags: Uncategorized are saunas good for your health Blood Pressure healthytime Heart Disease how to lower blood pressure naturally hypertension Research steam room stress relief Source Type: news