That sauna makes you feel good is old news, but now the world of research is getting increasingly interested in the health benefits from sauna bathing. A special sauna lab is being planned at the Technical University of Luleå in the North of Sweden.
Research will start in 2018, and Hans Hägglund, associate professor and chief physician at the Academic Hospital in Uppsala, is one of the people who are engaged in the project.
– I hope the first experiments with healthy, voluntary people will be started in the fall of 2018, he says in a radio interview with P4 Kalmar.
Hans Hägglund is, among other things, interested in studying whether sauna bathing can be beneficial to disabled or older people, who are not capable of regular exercise. A number of studies have already shown that the heart can be strengthened by sauna bathing, and now the scientists want to find out exactly why this is and how it happens. Before, people with different heart problems was often told not to sauna, but Hans Hägglund says that maybe that is a recommendation that needs to change. It could be that those people would actually benefit from the “exercise” that the heart and vessels get from spending time in the sauna.
– Sauna bathing strengthens the heart function, and can give people suffering from heart failure a stronger heart muscle. There are a number of other diagnosises where patients might benefit from sauna bathing as well, that we also need to research further, says Hans Hägglund.
Source: http://sverigesradio.se/sida/artikel.aspx?programid=86&artikel=6800507
