People who took sauna baths at least four times per week demonstrated a 61 percent reduced risk of stroke when compared to those who visited the sauna just once a week, according to a Finnish study with an average follow-up of 15 years.
Published online May 2 in Neurology, the study included 1,628 adults with an average age of 62.7. During follow-up, 155 incident strokes were recorded but those who took more sauna baths were less likely to meet this outcome even after adjustment for established cardiovascular risk factors, physical activity and socioeconomic standards.
“These results are exciting because they suggest that this activity that people use for relaxation and pleasure may also have beneficial effects on your vascular health,” study coauthor Setor K. Kunutsor, PhD, of the University of Bristol in the United Kingdom, said in a press release. “Sauna bathing is a safe activity for most healthy people and even people with stable heart problems. More research is needed to confirm this finding and to understand the ways that saunas affect stroke risk.”
The rate of stroke was found to be 8.1 per 1,000 person-years for people who took one sauna per week compared to 7.4 for those who took two to three saunas per week and 2.8 for those who went to the sauna four to seven times per week.
The same research group previously showed saunas are associated with blood pressure reductions, increased vascular compliance and elevated heart rates similar to medium-intensity exercise.
“Saunas appear to have a blood pressure lowering effect, which may underlie the beneficial effect on stroke risk,” Kunutsor said, but he added the observational study could only prove an association between saunas and reduced stroke incidence, not causation.
Kunutsor and colleagues noted the findings only incorporated traditional Finnish saunas and shouldn’t be applied to other forms of heat therapy such as steam rooms and hot tubs.
Daniel joined TriMed’s Chicago editorial team in 2017 as a Cardiovascular Business writer. He previously worked as a writer for daily newspapers in North Dakota and Indiana.