00:00with regenerative treatments are obviously the benefits of infrared or saunas it is talking about increased blood flow a healthy blood flow and then another group of mice they put in little mous saunas for the same exact amount of time the mice lost the same amount of fat with just the sauna no exercise compared to the mice that ran on the treadmill so welcome to the podcast with me your host Dr. Debra Durst and my co-host Farideh. Hey guys Farideh Golembiewski nurse practitioner here at RevitalyzeMD and today we have a special guest with us and I'll let Dr. Durst introduce her so Dr Jenna Greenfield is with Hightech and Hightech is a far and for red SAA and Dr Greenfield is going to talk to us about the benefits of that and again SAA um and all the benefits and Dr Greenfield I'll let you say a few words for us sure yeah
01:00I'm the medical director here at Hightech Health um so do tons of research on benefits safety um all the research on far infrared saunas um there are so many incredible benefits um when we heat our body we increase these proteins in our cells called heat shock proteins um basically their job is to repair all the other proteins in the cells so it really um you know benefits every organ every tissue um tons of research on cardiovascular benefits significantly reduces your risk of heart disease decreases inflammation um there's studies showing regular sauna users have a significantly lower incidence of dementia um so I'm really WID spread health benefits so the cognitive benefits are there as well cognitive mood yep so in just to give everyone a little history again I bought my first infrared sauna way back it was you know I don't 2017 and it was a high-tech sauna and again
02:00I was just learning the difference between red light therapy and infrared versus regular sauna and yeah so all kinds of so I did you know blog that kind of explained that but we also get a ton of questions on that every day and I love my sauna and so then we reached back out because I wanted to hear more and let you guys express it to the patients as we get questions on it but when we're talking about saunas I still think people get confused at you know what is like are all the studies related to just regular sauna or infrared what's the difference dry sauna what temperatures how long do we get you know so maybe yeah just touching on the difference hormone benefits yeah touching on the difference between like the regular sauna which are some of the studies right and infrar red what is the difference between the two sure sure um so a traditional sauna just
03:00Heats You by heating the air they're typically used at much higher temperatures 180s 190s 200 even um in an infrared sauna the infrared Heats us directly without heating the air as much so you get of a faster and a better heating at much lower air temperatures um so you can picture like the infrared is what makes the sun feel warm even when the air is cold so I use the kind of analogy picture you're outside on a hot day it's 100° and you're in the shade that would be like a traditional sauna and then you step into the Sun and now the air is the same temperature but now you have the infrared from the Sun in addition so it feels much hotter um so infrared saunas are typically used around 130 all the studies on the benefits are all between the low 120s and 140s kind of typical range that they're used at and you get the same increase in body temperature um
04:00some people find them more comfortable because then the air you're breathing isn't as hot but you get all the same benefits and what about time frame how much time do they you need to be SP spending in yeah I based on the studies on the benefits um you know they're generally some as low as 15 minutes um some you know up to 30 we usually say shoot for 20 to 30 minutes um it's kind of enough to get a couple degrees bump in your core body temperature and we've actually done our own little EXP experiments with that taking our temperature in the sauna usually you get a couple degrees bump within 20 to 30 minutes is that what you need really for the body to start seeing some change yep based on the study yep about about one one and a half to two degrees you'll start getting the benefits too and faray asked a good question or at least for a clarification because I think when we talk about regular saunas and they talk about dry versus not it really still is not a dry sauna a regular sauna because there's more moisture in it correct but
05:00it's still regular does mean dry or moist it's not like a steam room it's a sauna not a steam room but most traditional saunas are like with the hot rocks and you do pour the water most of them do have some steam it's not quite the same as a steam room but just more moisture inas are yeah I think that um as I was researching it a little more again it's infrared versus regular sauna which is technically dry but has more moisture is that fair to say than an infrared yeah and then again I go back to the basic so people think because it's infrared you have to see red but you really don't right no correct so um yeah and that kind of gets into the near infrared and red light therapy which is a huge topic that can be very confusing so there's a lot of information out there um and a lot of it is kind of conflicting information so infrared you actually it's it's invisible um it's
06:00actually beyond the visible spectrum and it's a pretty wide band of light um so it can be divided into far infrared mid infrared and near infrared based on the wavelength so the far infrared are the longer wavelengths near infrared are the shorter wavelengths that are right next to the visible spectrum so um red light and near infrared are sometimes used in interchangeably because when you have near infrared it's right next to that red light so often you get some overlap into the visual spectrum and it appears red um the far infrared well all infrared is invisible but um the far infrared definitely is not not visible it's not a pure red so it is an on the electromagnetic spectrum again there's that visible range which is something you can see so those are the colors and then as the wavelength gets longer then you get into to that invisible and that's
07:00where you're talking about near full spectrum or far infrared in Hightech is are far infrared so longest wavelength which also equals larger or deeper penetration into the tissue correct um yeah I mean they're all you know absorbed in some layer in the skin um but that's actually I don't if you want me to kind of go into the near versus the full spectrum versus far in red are the questions we get yeah questions about that all the time and people get really confused it's a big potentially confusing topic um infrared saunas have traditionally always been far infared going back decades and there's Decades of research dozens and dozens of studies on the benefits and the safety of the far infrared saunas um it's the near infrared or the full spectrum saunas is something that some companies have been doing recently adding the near infrared so you have all the wave lengths there's actually never been a study using near infrared in a sauna so all of the studies on
08:00near infrared there are some benefits and there are some medical applications um but the studies are all using lasers or LEDs to treat local areas of the body in very specific Doses and there are studies that show that if you're exposed to too much it can actually do more harm than good so these companies are kind of adding it and um you know claiming these benefits but there are studies that aren't really you know applicable to use in a sauna um so we're far infrared only at high-tech health and um we're confident that that's much safer um you know it's it's the only you know type of sauna that's really been studied and proven to be safe do you have any specific studies you would Point people to most of the studies that we see are from Sweden and Finland or Finland sorry well it might be too yeah yeah there's a lot of studies um on out of there's some really great
09:00studies on the on out of Finland some long-term studies um there's a huge body of research out of Japan um where they call far infared saunas they call the called W therapy w n or w o think a o n um and they're foreign for red saunas and there's a ton of studies um This research group out of Japan um most of them not all but most are on the cardiovascular benefits tons of great studies on cardiovascular benefit benefits of far infrared saunas they have some on some other things pain and inflammation there but um yeah that's probably the biggest you know body of research research group on the far infrared so when you're talking about temperatures you're saying like 130 to 140 goal 25 to 30 minutes how often is this daily twice a day a couple times a week how often do we really need to be in the sauna to see the benefits and how soon will we see those benefits sure um I mean you definitely can use it every day you know we usually suggest kind of starting slow starting
10:00at lower temps and you know working your way up make sure you're feeling good and tolerating it um so the goal is to kind of be in a state of being heat acclimated um and you know there are lots of studies on how to best achieve that state um if you're doing it every day you're going to get there faster once you're acclimated um the research suggests about every other day is enough to kind of maintain that state so we usually say shoot for at least three times a week you know for the full benefits you're still getting benefits if you're you know missing days missing weeks even you know um but ideally You' want to shoot for at least three times a week to get the full benefits you definitely can use it more and I think that some of the studies with regular saas would compare like a one time a week you know at like say you know a I think it was like a 20% reduction but then if they did it more times a week it would significantly go up to almost like a 60% so you
11:00know again it may be related to more benefit if that's what you're but again the overall health benefits period for de-stressing and detoxing and cardiovascular cardiovascular and cognitive and in growth hormone production correct so did you do you have any studies that actually because again obviously saunas and heat help hormone production and growth hormone is a huge one and so do you have anything that looked at infrared specifically in growth hormone or hormone production I don't off the top of my head I can't think of one on that I mean I could I could dig for it but well and I think again to me and you can correct me if I'm wrong because I like to dummy things down for my own purposes because you know there's a lot of stuff up there and sometimes you know it gets a little a little much but so I look at like Sauna versus infrared the all the studies you know
12:00there's no safety concerns with either and there's lots of health benefits and to me and this is where I'll let you correct me if I'm wrong I just look at them as infrared is a longer wavelength and the Heat and penetration of that energy is deeper into the Skin So if they're looking at red light you know it's more superficial or like you said local treatments and then sauna and infrared are both going to heat and have benefits you just might get a deeper penetration and it's more comfortable because even though you're getting a deeper penetration and all the benefits without any safety concerns you don't have to go as high or get as uncomfortable when you're doing it would that be a simple putting it is a it's just it's sort of a more efficient way to heat your body than you know versus where a traditional sauna where it's just air is hot and that heat is kind
13:00of being transferred to you the infrared yeah it's absorbed by your cell so it Heats you directly it's kind of it's basically a more efficient way to heat you um a lot of the benefits are going to be the same you know they come from heating your body so and it's kind of hard to tease out you know when you're doing studies on infrared um it can be hard to tease out kind of what is the from the infrared itself and what's from the temperature um there is there's one study that does seem to suggest that there are some benefits of the infrared that are um independent of the Heat and that um showed the release of nitric oxide from the endothelium aligning of your blood vessels which is really important for cardiac health it basically allows your blood vessels to dilate so um you know controlling blood pressure which is kind of the the root of a lot of cardiov vascular problems is high blood pressure so there's a study showing that infrared does appear to release help with the release of nitric oxide and independent of the heat that's
14:00it's a separate mechanism for that so that might be one benefit that traditional sonas don't have as much of I like that well nitric oxide is a huge you know topic for us too just for sexual wellness and but you're right you know blood vessel Health Muscle Health um erection you know stuff too so the nitric oxide production decreases with age so it is growth hormone so there you go there you go both of them lots of studies on um promoting angiogenesis you know the growth of new blood vessels so yeah lots of lots of evidence that it helps a lot with just blood flow circulation I always like to um clarify because I get a lot of questions in one I feel like this is somewhere on the internet lately because within one week last week I got two questions on concerns with angio Genesis and some peptides the issue and just healing peptides the issue is that when we're talking about angiogenesis or blood vessel growth with regenerative treatments are obviously
15:00the benefits of infrared or saas it is talking about increased blood flow a healthy blood flow not that it's making blood vessels grow where it they shouldn't grow so no it's production of new blood vessels yeah no it's not dilating your well I mean it does to an extent but no angiogenesis is production of new capillaries you're getting new healthy blood vessels yes yeah did you has anyone asked you I me it was like two patients within one week that were like well that the concern is we're going to grow new blood vessels and we're going to get bad things and I'm like be something showing up sponsored on Instagram or something yeah I feel like it was culation is generally always a good thing yes correct increase blood POS good so what about um infrared sauna or working out in saunas right this is a newer Trend that we're seeing more and more of and it seems to have kind of improved a little on Fitness benefits yeah um I mean it definitely helps you recover faster
16:00helps your muscles kind of repair and recover after a workout um but lots of studies too on just um performance increasing endurance um there was actually um you know they showed that they've done a lot of studies with mice and um and saunas and and exercise one of my favorite studies they ran um a group of mice on a treadmill it was uh 30 minutes five times a week for three weeks like that or maybe three times a week for five weeks but and then another group of mice they put in little mous saunas for the same exact amount of time the mice lost the same amount of fat with just the sauna no exercise compared to the mice that ran on the treadmill um so it increases yeah and the way it did they you know looked at the way it did that was increases their mitochondria um which you know are the organel the part of your things in your cell that turn energy into work so it increases endurance and it increases um the use of it basically your resting metabolism you're
17:00turning more fuel into into work burning more so those mice that were put in those little mini mice saunas they weren't running they were just in the sauna sitting just sitting there while these other little mice were running around can have the same kind of fat loss I love that there you go D yeah just sit in your just sit in the well there is actually there are studies to support and again I don't know if it was just inide but in sauna that it mimics moderate activity so for those people that aren't as active or immobile or can't get active or just to slowly work them up to more physical activity it actually mix it moderate activity so I me doing both you get you know corre double the benefits um but if you're unable to exercise for various reasons injuries or you know illness um yeah there's a lot of the same benefits even on my fitness watch when I'm in the sauna for like hot works right doing a little uh small workout for a short amount of time in sauna
18:00my activity level is a lot higher my stress on my body increases significantly just from the strain of the Heat and the body temperature base yeah so we actually do um you know we have hot works here which is the fitness facility that has infrared and you get in the infrared sonas and workout and I I have trouble doing a regular Sauna versus the infrared quite frankly but it's probably because I have a high-tech in my basement and love it and I love the Heat and I love the fact that you can work out at um hot works and it's a 24-hour and it's an infrared with two benefits where your flexibility is much better too because you can go away earlyer or late at night or if you don't want to work out you can just go you can go just rent rent the room the SAA rent the room I rent the room sometimes just go in yes well hot works yeah in hot yoga too I mean I I just sit in there and do my own thing but I still work out but it's still but the thing that I would like to
19:00share before we ended this is this spe like what makes high-tech like in my opinion the medical grade but higher quality than most infrared people are looking for an infrared and there are benefits to high-tech that I would like you to speak about because I think that's important when they're making that purchase decision play I said it played a role for you why a huge Ro for me yes and I love my sauna and we're actually we're building out a new office and we're going to have an infrared in Hightech SAA there too so awesome awesome um yeah absolutely I mean lots of things um we're really you know we're really designed for for health we really we don't cut any Corners we very careful with all the materials we put into it s my cat is around I know we're being entertained we're entertained by the cat yeah we're um as low as you can get in the EMF which is another huge
20:00topic but that um you know infrared sa is can be high in EMF electromagnetic fields which um you know are shown to have some negative effects and we actually have a patent on the technology that virtually completely eliminates both the electric and the magnetic field so that's not an issue in ours um something that really makes us different is our heater design um so most infrared saunas use a carbon based heater which are the big black panels cover the whole walls um our heaters are pretty unique they're a stainless steel rod with a polished aluminum reflective backings they're a highgrade metal they're much more powerful than the carbon heaters carbon heaters run around 200° our heaters run around 440 so those higher temps mean they're putting out a lot more infrared um plus then you have the reflective backing which doubles the amount of infrared being directed towards you um so like I said earlier in an infrared sauna it's really the infrared more than the air temperature that's heating you um so 130 in our sauna is going to feel a lot
21:00hotter than 130 in another sauna where you're not getting as much infrared so you get that faster heating um and then they also just last forever I mean we have saunas that have been running in clinics running all day every day for over 20 years and they're still going strong so that's awesome and even so I think that again from from my standpoint it was also easily LED you know so I could get somebody to easily assemble it wasn't crazy complicated it's important oh it's super important to me and it's super important to a lot of people actually because you buy something and then our two person just plugs into a standard outlet too which most so most companies their two person requires a 20 amp circuit so that was one of the things we were looking at is do we have to run a separate circuit for it or not or can we just plug it in you can plug I have everyone in my office considering them now as we start to talk more and more about it I just have been using it quietly at home but the other thing is the wood so like there's specific wood too that also is very
22:00health Ben you know it's not going to release anything so maybe comment on that too sure so um yeah and we use 100% solid wood um so we have two options now we have popler and Hemlock and whichever one we're 100% single Wood Construction so we don't use plywood or you know most companies will use a cheap wood L Pine for the frame or these plywood on the top of the roof um which off gases for Malahide especially when it's heated um so we're 100% solid wood single Wood Construction and then the popler um the reason we traditionally use the popler is because it has virtually no wood odor so we get customers sometimes with you know multiple chemical sensitivities MCS are just very sensitive to Smells um and the pop is the only thing that some people can tolerate um we do have the hemlock which is also a very low VOC clean high quality wood for people that don't need the
23:00popler that aren't that sensitive um the hemlocks a little less expensive it's the same it's high quality but it's just a little less expensive for us to get so we offer that as an option but but yeah we're extremely careful with everything that we put into them yeah no it's amazing and again I've had mine since 2017 and it still looks brand new and so it's awesome so well thank you do you think there's anything else that you would like to say before we wrapped up um I would say also that you know something else we pride ourselves in is that we all um are the most knowledgeable of the sales teams of any company you know everyone has really strong science backgrounds you know I'm an MD by my training but you know everyone's got Science degrees everyone's as knowledgeable um on our saunas and we would love to talk to anybody about any other questions that they have about any of this or well I love it and we will actually link your website to in the show notes and I will say that I called the office the other day and just the customer service called me
24:00back based on a missing like on the Miss call so customer service is huge right now because I think you can't get good customer service at a lot of companies and I do like that you a real person yeah a real person awesome we missed your call and they called back and it wasn't because they knew me like it just they called back which was great you guys don't do it looks like an online sale so you really are going to educate when somebody wants one yep we want to talk to people and F out make sure that we're getting them the best product what they need and answering all their questions um we help you support you after you you know bought it you call us with questions any time about use and um you know like I said if if there's a benefit or health question that um other the rest of our team doesn't know I'm the medical director they would pass it to me but I mean our our whole staff just as so knowledgeable all this amazing just some other little things
25:00about it is it does have like a little ventilation so that you can actually get Co2 out and you can have music and you can have music they got little stands for it it's very comfortable like so the little benefits but assembly was a big one for me right assembly of course always now in my house it'll be the fact that we can listen to music in the sauna yeah because you know my prein that's all she really cares about right now yeah so there's all kinds of things but you guys are located in Boulder Colorado again a wonderful company um everyone that you talk to is knowledgeable the customer service is amazing but the the product most importantly is just topnotch so if you're looking for an infrared high-tech health is definitely the place to go so thank you for being on Dr Greenfield and yeah and let us know if you have any um comments share your experience with infrared any questions you may have and again we have a Blog on our website we'll
26:00link to two blogs that talk about it and even hot works and then we will link to high-tech here and just let us know if there's anything else you want to talk about because again we're willing to Deep dive into anything wellness and thank you Dr Greenfield for being with us thank you