Saunas Improve Heart Failure
March 15, 2002 -- A stint in the sauna may improve cardiac function in heart failure patients, according to new research.
The Japanese team looked at two groups of people with stable, moderate heart failure. One group of 20 took a daily 15-minute sauna, followed by a half-hour rest under a blanket. The other group of 10 simply rested in bed for 45 minutes.
At the beginning and end of the study, the researchers performed ultrasound testing to see what was going on with the patients' arteries and tested their blood for a protein marker -- called BNP -- that indicates how well the heart is pumping blood to the rest of the body.
After two weeks, nearly all of the people who'd taken daily saunas showed much better blood flow in their arteries, much lower levels of BNP, and what's more, they felt better. People in the other group had no changes at all.
"Repeated sauna treatment improves [blood vessel] function, resulting in improvement in cardiac function and ... symptoms," write study author Takashi Kihara, MD, and colleagues from Kagoshima University and Nanpuh Hospital in Kagoshima.
According to the researchers, further research is needed to determine whether sauna treatments would be beneficial to patients with unstable or severe heart failure.
Saunas Improve Heart Failure
March 15, 2002 -- A stint in the sauna may improve cardiac function in heart failure patients, according to new research.
The Japanese team looked at two groups of people with stable, moderate heart failure. One group of 20 took a daily 15-minute sauna, followed by a half-hour rest under a blanket. The other group of 10 simply rested in bed for 45 minutes.
At the beginning and end of the study, the researchers performed ultrasound testing to see what was going on with the patients' arteries and tested their blood for a protein marker -- called BNP -- that indicates how well the heart is pumping blood to the rest of the body.
After two weeks, nearly all of the people who'd taken daily saunas showed much better blood flow in their arteries, much lower levels of BNP, and what's more, they felt better. People in the other group had no changes at all.
"Repeated sauna treatment improves [blood vessel] function, resulting in improvement in cardiac function and ... symptoms," write study author Takashi Kihara, MD, and colleagues from Kagoshima University and Nanpuh Hospital in Kagoshima.
According to the researchers, further research is needed to determine whether sauna treatments would be beneficial to patients with unstable or severe heart failure.