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I vividly remember having an elevated heart rate for a full day after my sauna experience in Helsinki. Actually I’ve had two experiences: “First” and “Last”!
I’ve never had the desire to repeat the experience.
Interesting that none of Finland, Norway, Sweden, Estonia and Iceland have very high rates of centenarians. This is despite sauna use being much more prevalent in those countries than others higher up the list AND despite the fact that oily fish consumption would be relatively high in those countries.
Simply strengthens my belief that neither sauna use nor fish oil have any longevity benefits. In the case of saunas; it may even be detrimental.
My hot take
I think some people want to debunk sauna benefits so badly because they can’t possibly believe sitting in a hot room is good for you, so they overlook all the positive data.
Among the top ranked, Portugal, Japan, Spain, South Korea, and Barbados have high fish consumption. The outlier is Romania, ranked 128 in fish consumption, but number 2 for number of centenarians per 100,000…
I have no need to debunk, but I find it difficult to think that a sauna does anything to your body that can’t be done another way.
Sigh…………………………………………
Its an interesting point about saunas. AIUI hormesis has a U shaped curve where a little is beneficial, but that can turn bad with a lot. It may be that the threshold for sauna is quite low.
I think this pattern of hormesis response can be seen in the cellular response to hyperoxia. There is a clear pattern of an initial response with HIF 1 alpha, then NRF2 leading to NF kappa B
These so-called “benefits” obviously do not include increasing the odds of living to 100+.
I find it difficult to understand how people can ignore data on a macro-scale such as the centenarian rate for each country.
You can safely ignore “micro” data such as uncle Jussi who used the sauna every day and died aged 105. It’s the exact reverse of saying that smoking is OK because George Burns smoked cigars and made it to 100. George Burns made it to 100 IN SPITE OF smoking cigars.
The data on Romania may not be reliable. This article puts it lower, and the average life expectancy is only 76 years. Romania has almost 5,500 centenarians on the voting lists | Romania Insider
It would be interesting to plot national average fish consumption against life expectancy. UK and USA are appalling low
It is a bit weird that people launch into personal attacks. That user does have habit of doing that. I’m sure there are reasons for it. I hope you’re not put off the forum. Ignore is a wonderful tool!
With life expectancy at birth you need to analyse separately child mortality and how long people last if they survive to adulthood.
You can flip that George Burns comment with" Fins seem to live short life spans in spite of the health benefits of sauna use.
Its not about ignoring mega trends its about ensuring there are not confounding reasons that may negate a gross positive effect. Its about trying to pick and choose causaul specific details from gross data. Why focus on their sauna use? Finns up until recently ate very poorly, were generally overweight, had very little physical activity, were heavy smokers, high rates of depression. Much has changed but those habits thru the 20th century still effect those populations. But even with that they still have much higher rates of substance abuse, adolescent mental illness and suicide rates compared to EU averages. Its the same type of drawing specific end conclusions from epidemiological studies. The are gross tools used to focus further research/trends.
To look at a modern population making life style changes effect on health and life expectancy Singapore is a fine example.
Another intersting one is Mongolians. Look at how the life expectancy of mongolians has continued to skyrocket as they get the most basic of medical care. These people eat mostly meat and milk. Have almost zero sanitation using animal dung for hygiene… Must have very interesting microbiome populations. They drink heavily as well. Not much of their dietary or physical lives has changed in hundreds of years. Yet from 1960 to today 2024 their average adult life expectancy has gone from 39.5683 in 1960 to to 73.2036 years in 2024. The only real change is the most basic modern medical access. That is a life expectancy increase of 85.01% almost 34 yrs added. Are we then to deduct that heavy drinking, little exercise, eating grossly huge volumes of meat and dairy is beneficial? Of course not. Not talking keto or carnivore as we know it but gorging on meat of over 5lb+ per day at times. Some records by Soviet mil scientist of up to 12-15lb of meat consumption in a day. But take your pick. Would it then be accurate to pick and choose data points as support for extended life? As the old adage goes “the devil is in the details”
I often wonder what the life expectancy would be in some of these 3rd world populations if they had to the medical care of USA/EU. Take the small Hadza population. What if they kept their life style but with the addition of very good medical care. When you look at the most common causes of death most all of them are easily treatable.
With all that said do I personally think the data supports actual increased life expectancy from regular sauna use? Doubtful But are there health benefits ? Very likely but maybe not in isolation? This is especially true if its enjoyable or mentaly positive if nothing else. We already know there is an association with challenged stressors and health benefits.
I think there is much more data in support of cold therapy in its positive effect on inflammation.
If you hate or dislike saunas then don’t partake is my opinion. Its not as if its a substantial effect like good diet, reg exercise, proper sleep, debilitating injury avoidance.
Yes, good point. But i do still think the Romania centenarian data from that Wikipedia link is erroneous. The Romania figure has no reference.
See this study which puts Romania’s centenarian % second from bottom in europe.
https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&opi=89978449&url=https://repositorio-aberto.up.pt/bitstream/10216/111535/1/Teixeira104.pdf&ved=2ahUKEwitlfTz5P2EAxW4aEEAHWPSDxQQFnoECCEQAQ&usg=AOvVaw0wv8MMlbK2QOQt0UDKJQVZ
I spent some time in Outer Mongolia, they do eat an enormous amount of mutton (all grass fed of course!)
They also drink a lot of “airag” a fermented horse milk that’s a bit like kefir . They drink and smoke an enormous amount
Blue Zone in the Netherlands.
Relatively most centenarians live in the province of Zeeland (4.2 per thousand over-80-year-olds), followed by Flevoland (4.0 per thousand over-80s). Limburg (2.2 per thousand over-80s) and Noord-Brabant (2.4 per thousand over-80s) count fewest centenarians.
On average, Dutch municipalities have 2.9 centenarians per thousand over-80s in their midst. Twenty-one of the 342 municipalities did not have any registered centenarians. The islands Vlieland (1 centenarian in 67 over-80s) and Schiermonnikoog (1 centenarian in 73 over-80s) counted most centenarians in relative terms on 1 January 2023.
Measuring centenarians as a proportion of people over 80 is probably better than just the proportion of cententarians as there will always be a question of locations with a higher number of young people unrelated to health issues.
Extreme old age claims are mostly undocumented and many of the documented age claims are based on phony documents.
“However, the majority of supercentenarian age claims are false.”
“Despite this history of the overwhelming improbability of various extreme age claims, the Western media continue to report such claims, particularly from exotic regions, as if they might be true”
Thanks for the link on epigenetic clocks. It’s very interesting that they can design these clocks to focus on certain groups - “the world’s first centenarian epigenetic clock”. I would personally love to use an epigenetic clock designed more for my segment of the population in terms of age group, general health parameters (not overweight, frail, prediabetic or with restricted arteries), general lifestyle. Then if my BioAge was 10 years younger than my ChronoAge, I would really feel good.
“If you hate or dislike saunas then don’t partake is my opinion.”
To reply: I do and I don’t…in that order.
However, just because I dislike saunas and don’t believe sauna use contributes to longevity shouldn’t preclude me from commenting.
Having lived and worked in Finland for a while I regard some of your comments about the health of the Finns to be inaccurate generalisations. To then set up sauna use as the “saviour” of health is rather disingenuous I feel.
If one compares longevity of the Finns to that of another population of similar socio-economic status (but low sauna use) then that might reveal something interesting. Compare Finland with England, for example. Or Italy.
But I do agree that the Romanian result looks suspicious in that table.
