00:00a new study finds that sauna therapy May improve skeletal muscle hypertrophy and skeletal muscle development in addition to also supporting immune system function we're going to talk about this recently published clinical trial finding that 10 sauna therapy sessions over the course of 3 weeks is able to significantly increase heat shock protein 70 levels we'll talk about what heat shock proteins are and why they're important not only for just hypertrophy and skeletal muscle development but also possibly preventing diseases of the brain such as Parkinson's dementia and Alzheimer's what the study also found is after 10 sauna sessions over the course of 3 weeks there were significant changes within the participants immune system and I think this is pretty fascinating because it turns out that sauna therapy is not only just a tool to help detoxification improve feelings of relaxation possibly support cardiometabolic Health but son theapy also has been shown to increase levels of anti-inflammatory immune cyto such as Incan 10 as this study found we're going to break down the details and talk about
01:00what these researchers found and what I think is interesting the scientists go to conclude towards the end is son theapy can be a tool for people who either don't have access to exercise or don't like to exercise because it helps to mimic or it's an exercise mimetic meaning that because of the way that sauna improves heart flow and blood flow and circulatory function by doing so it mimics the effects of exercise and it might actually enhance the effect and the recovery from exercise as these scientist figured out so we're going to dive into this the title of the paper is the effect of a single and series of finished sauna sessions on the immune response and heat shock protein 70 levels in trained and untrained men so men were randomized uh to do a V2 Max test and based upon their V2 Max test they were bucketed into the untrained category or the trained category the thresholds to differentiate or bifurcate training status was having a VO2 max over 5050 so majority of the men in the group that were trained had a V2 Max
02:00over over 55 that was the median V2 Max now the folks that and these are young men in their 20s by the way just for context I'm 41 my V2 Max is 54 I just tested it last week so these are very fit people the untrained group their V2 Max was 40 so they don't regularly exercise habitually for whatever reason and the scientists wanted to figure out what the differences and immunologic responses cardiovascular responses body temperature as well as heat shock protein responses is there any difference in athletes versus untrained athletes and it turns out there is and that's why we're going to dive into this paper because it's quite fascinating the scientists say our hypothesis assumed that after the first Sonic treatment there would be an increase in the total number of white blood cells they looked at lymphocytes neutrophils all sorts of natural killer cells a myriad of different immune cells because previous Studies have found that sauna or heat therapy improves aiic capacity of a bunch of different immune cells incling including natural killer cells which are
03:00important for the upcoming cold and flu season but also it it preferentially changed the sakine response to Pivot the immune system into a more anti-inflammatory state which we're going to get into it's very fascinating they go on to say in the trained subjects we expected that the number of neutrophils basophils and lymphocytes would increase more than in the untrained men in untrained subjects we expected greater change is in hsp70 that is heat shock protein 70 concentration after Sona treatments as a response to heat stress we assume that in untrained people the sauna can be a kind of substitute for physical training and its effect would be similar to the effect of physical exertion hence we expect a strong reaction after the first bath and various adaptation processes after the 10th bath for trained individuals the thermal stimulus may have a lesser effect on one white blood cells as these individuals organisms are to some extent adapted to similar extrinsic stressors because exercise induces produces body
04:00heat and so this is in fact what the scientist hypothesized and this is pretty much what they found now let's quickly review the study protocol Illustrated here in figure one so the sauna sessions were three 15minute sessions and between those 15minute sauna sessions there was a two-minute Gap now they did all 10 of these three 15minute sessions over the course of 3 weeks which is pretty intense so this was a short duration study that is relatively robust to ascertain the pH physiologic response to the heat stimulus I don't generally suggest people do this intense of AA therapy if they've never done this right away but it's interesting to see how the body responds to such a heat stress over a short period of time a 3-week period of time which would be sufficient to induce the adaptations and in short what we saw is increase in natural killer cells and increase in Incan 10 which is anti-inflammatory as well as significant increases in heat shock protein levels even more significant increases in those protein responses in untrained persons
05:00which supports the hypothesis that untrained people may benefit from sauna more so than trained people because this is a exercise mimic and it's really important to acknowledge that now that doesn't mean that athletes can't benefit as well I think it augments exercise uh wonderfully and I try to go in the sauna after I exercise and I think you should too so before we continue on friends I just want to thank this video show sponsor our friends over at Bond charge make one of the lowest EMF sauna blankets on the market this gets up to 170° so if you don't go in the sauna if your gym doesn't have access to a sauna or if you live in an apartment or condo or have roommates you should definitely invest in a sauna blanket this is the easiest way to get into heat therapy again this blanket is very small form factor you don't need a big space for this it unrolls and it gets really hot really quick just 12 minutes is really all I can take I get super hot in this I use this all the time especially after I cold plunged and I don't have time to start up my sauna it's a wonderful tool that you can can do in the convenience
06:00of your home and you can travel with the sauna blanket as well so you can save but go to bonch charge.com on the lowest EMF hottest sauna blanket on the market Bond charge also makes an array of Health promoting tools including their amazing sleep mask they also make blue light filtering glasses and a bunch of other great tools so definitely check them out over at bonch charge.com so let's talk more about the study the details are incredibly fascinating I know you're like me you like these uh details and the nuances of the science so let's dive into it now remember they did 10 sauna sessions each session was 15 minutes followed by 2 minute Gap and then another 15-minute session 2-minute break and another 15-minute session so it was 45 minutes cumulative but there was a little bit of there were some breaks in there but the scientists say after the first and 10th heat bass a statistically significant decrease in body mass was observed in B study groups we care more about body fat but we'll take a decrease in body mass it probably wasn't muscle mass it was probably water weight cuz it was just 3
07:00weeks but it's important to acknowledge that sauna is a great way to sweat and that's why I recommend people go in the sauna we are exposed to endocrine disrupting chemicals everywhere our air food water clothing there's flame retardant on bedding and couches this stuff is everywhere increasing your sweating response is a great way to detoxify these heavy metals that have endocrine disrupting effects so that's important the scientists say a greater difference in body mass was noted after the 10th session compared to the first session in both groups that makes sense the more you get used to sweating the decrease in body mass you know they didn't differentiate body fat versus lean body mass but there was a reduction I would speculate its water weight in response to the sauna bass no significant differences were found in body weight loss between the two groups meaning that trained people versus untrained people didn't lose more or less body weight they go on to say in both study groups a statistically significant increase in heart rate was found after the first and 10th sauna bath they say after the last Saun a bath
08:00the heart rate value was significantly lower compared to the first Saun a bath in the train group meaning that trained athletes tended to have a lower heart rate after the sauna session they acclimated to the heat stress faster which makes sense because when you exercise you naturally get hot and you're more acclimated to maintaining homeostasis after that heat related stress but it goes to prove that sa therapy is a great tool for your cardiometabolic health specifically your heart and heart rate and blood volume which is great they also said in response to the first on a bath a significantly greater increase in heart rate was observed in the untrending in the trained Group which offers a nice disclaimer if you've never gone in a sauna before and you don't exercise and you have cardiovascular risk factors your heart rate is going to get going a little bit so give yourself some time this study would not be I think ethical if you were to put 70-year-old men or women uh who were untrained and have them do three 15 minutes sauna sessions
09:00and 10 of those over the course of 3 weeks because that would be a significant surge in cardio cardiometabolic stress for these individuals so ease into it if you're over the age of 40 and you have cardiovascular risk factors because your heart rate will go up but over time your body will become acclimated to this and will be will better tolerate this um there was a change in blood volume which I think is interesting but we're going to continue on and talk about the immune responses which are just incredibly fascinating and when the first you know wave of coid broke out in March of 2020 I was sharing the science extensively because we have a large dossier of literature finding that sauna and heat therapy improves AIC capacity of various immune cells lymphocytes neutrophils natural killer cells what is fago capacity that is the ability of your immune cells to go seek and destroy pathogens such as a virus such as a bacteria possibly a parasite so it's important to acknowledge that the activity of IM immune cells are
10:00stimulated by heat it could be the humoral response of the heat the changes in heart rate or cortisol adrenaline it's not really sused out the precise mechanisms by way heat improves immunologic surveillance but suffice it to say there is a a characteristic response that's favorable within the immune system after you get hot so the best time to go in the sauna is the winter when everyone's sick and there's sniffly people all around you go in the SAA it's good for your immune system so the scientists go on to say that statistically significant changes in the train group were found only in the natural killer cells between results obtained before the first session and after the 10th sauna bath so it's interesting to find that there were significant differences in the natural killer cells mostly in the trained athletes and there were small changes in the untrained group but I want to focus on these anti-inflammatory sakin specifically Incan 10 which is yellow here in figure a as you can see this increases significantly this is one of
11:00the only anti-inflammatory Incans we know interlukin 6 is favorable post exercise and during exercise it's actually released from skeletal muscle and so I know that inter lucans get characterized into being bad and inflammatory but it's all in context and it turns out that sa therapy might mediate some of the favorable hormetic responses by way of interlukin 6 but it is nice to know that we do see an increase in interlukin 10 which is anti-inflammatory but let's focus now on the heat shock proteins these are incredibly fascinating proteins and uh I myself have been very interested in this as well as folks that you may know about like Dr Ronda Patrick as you can see this figure two from her paper titled SAA use as a lifestyle practice to extend healthspan the heat shock proteins they help to slow muscular atrophy they help promote longevity they help degrade protein aggregated protein products that may help protect against Huntington's disease Parkinson's disease and Alzheimer's disease they also help prevent cardiomyopathy atherosclerosis
12:00and help cardiovascular functioning there was another recently published paper titled heat shock proteins and heat therapy for type 2 diabetes pros and cons the scientists goana say that human studies indicate that heat therapy reduces fasting glycemia glycated hemoglobin body weight and atopos animal model Studies have indicated that nitric oxide in the increase in heat shock protein 70 expression is involved in the improvements induced by heat therapy on insulin sensitivity osity inflammation and vasom metricity uh meaning affecting blood flow and vasod dilation I would just say if you struggle with reptile dysfunction going in the sauna is one of the best things you can do my friends it's the best way to improve blood flow I've noticed changes in my vasculature uh since building my my classic finish sauna and as a scientist gu to say the traditional finish sauna May support skeletal muscle hypertrophy by stimulating heat protein 70 this protein is involved in the structural development of skeletal muscle it regulates muscle plasticity and acts as a mo ular chaperone helping to refold or
13:00remove defective proteins in this study the influence of an increase in internal temperature during sauna bathing on the concentration of heat shock protein from hsp70 family was determined after bathing in the sauna a statistically significant increase in the level of heat shock protein 70 was obtained in both studied groups with an increase in the train group to 1.47 and in the untrained group to 1.61 which is quite fasting I believe believe this was well they go want to say right here after the first son of bath the serum concentration of heat shock protein 70 increased by 144% in the trained group and 271 per in the untrained group compared to the level of tamed before the bath this highlights the fact that a one-time heat treatment are a heavy burden on the body it's a hormetic stressor just like running is just like fasting is just like lifting weights is uh it's a favorable hermetic stresser that causes your body to adapt in favorable ways to
14:00help to mitigate the disruptions of homeostasis when you go into the sauna again so I've noticed that I'm able to tolerate much much higher temperatures compared to when I started sauna bathing back in 2014 so really important stuff now the scientists say it has been shown that a single exposure to heat in a sauna causes changes in the expression of genes and coding heat shock proteins in peripheral blood lucaites in the study by balama edol the expression of the gene responsible for heat shark protein 70 was significantly increased after a 15minute exposure to the sauna which is just incredible okay now we talked about the Incans that is Illustrated here I think this is incredibly fascinating again Incan 10 is powerfully anti-inflammatory and essentially what these scientists have ascertained is trained individuals have a quicker response to the hormetic stress and they show better adaptations than untrained individuals but untra trained individuals still experience favorable
15:00adaptations after just 10 sauna sessions over the course of 3 weeks so that's the important thing to understand a reduction in heart rate reduction in body mass uh changes in blood volume which could be important for blood viscosity improvements in anti-inflammatory signaling and I think what is most significantly the big takeaway from this study is significant increases in heat shock protein especially in untrained people now untrained people need that protection for their brain for their cardiovascular system so if you just for whatever reason I implore everyone to exercise but if you don't like to exercise or you can't make the time for it or you're injured or what have you uh at least go in the sauna now if often people follow up with the question well when do I sauna how hot should it be how long I suggest when you can do it after exercise it may improve some of the damage as we just talked about you know when you are building muscle part part of the hypertrophy response is to create some localize damage and increasing the
16:00heat shock protein expression may help uh repair some of that damage uh and cause increases in muscular hypertrophy which could be important and you do see the similar shifts that you see in exercise with Incan six elevations we see that with sauna which I think is quite fascinating so I suggest you know depending upon your accessibility at least 15 or 20 minutes after you exercise and if you can take a break do a cold shower do a cold plunge do a cold swim and do another 15 minutes I that is phenomenal if you can do that 3 days a week at a minimum you are going to do yourself a lot of favors from a cardiometabolic health standpoint from relaxation improving blood flow erectile function stress reduction the list goes on and on my friends there's a lot of benefits here so let's get after it I want to thank these scientists for putting out great research and helping us to better understand the mechanisms as to how sauna therapy and heat therapy can improve human physiology incredibly fasinating stuff thank you for watching all the way through let me know what you think in the comments section if you enjoy the content please hit that like
17:00button be sure to subscribe to the channel and check out our show sponsor Bon charge they have an amazing at home infrared sauna blanket that is the lowest EMF on the market definitely check it out so we'll catch you on a future video down the road