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Wisdom Wednesdays: Hot Baths vs Saunas - which is Better for Strength, Recovery and Longevity? · Hardiness with Dr Paul Taylor

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  Speaker 1: Here everyone, Welcome to another edition of Wisdom Wednesdays, and
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  Speaker 1: today I want to do a bit of a deep
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  Speaker 1: dive into heat. Now, many of us think of hate
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  Speaker 1: therapies as a bit of a luxury, a sauna after
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  Speaker 1: a workout, a hot bath at the end of the day,
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  Speaker 1: and probably something that we do to relax. But the
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  Speaker 1: research coming out lately paints a very different picture. And
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  Speaker 1: heat isn't just comfort, It's a training stimulus. And I've
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  Speaker 1: talked a little bit before about the benefits of saunas,
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  Speaker 1: but I really want to do a deep dive into
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  Speaker 1: the idea that heat is a stressor that can literally
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  Speaker 1: change how your body functions all the way down to
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  Speaker 1: gene expression. And the question and I want to explore
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  Speaker 1: today is does a sauna outperform a hot bath or
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  Speaker 1: the other way around. So let's start with a few
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  Speaker 1: really interesting studies, very recent studies. One done it just
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  Speaker 1: this year by Takeida and colleagues. They ran a pretty
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  Speaker 1: interesting experiment. They put people through five high intensity resistance
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  Speaker 1: training sessions over two weeks. So high intensity when it
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  Speaker 1: comes to resistance training, it just means heavy loads, right,
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  Speaker 1: and after each workout, the participants were randomly assigned to
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  Speaker 1: either soaking their legs in a forty degrees centigrade hot
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  Speaker 1: bath for ten minutes. That's about forty degrees apologies for
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  Speaker 1: our American friends, but forty degrees centigrade. That's a kind
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  Speaker 1: of a hot what you would describe as a hot bath.
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  Speaker 1: Not ridiculously hot, but a hot bath. And the other
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  Speaker 1: guys took a forty degree hot shore, so they had
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  Speaker 1: the same water temperature and for the same amount of time.
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  Speaker 1: They did the hot shore for ten minutes. The only
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  Speaker 1: difference is that one group was immersed in the hot
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  Speaker 1: water and the other one wasn't. And the results were
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  Speaker 1: really interesting. The guys who took the hot baths almost
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  Speaker 1: doubled the strength training games of the guys who took
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  Speaker 1: the shore. They had a nine point three percent increase
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  Speaker 1: in maximum leg strength for the hot bath group, and
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  Speaker 1: it was only a four point five percent increase in
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  Speaker 1: the hot shot group. And the difference really comes down
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  Speaker 1: to heat load how deeply the body actually absorbs the heat.
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  Speaker 1: So it turns out that hot water immersion actually reduces
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  Speaker 1: peripheral fatigue, or did in this study, and improved neuromuscular
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  Speaker 1: recovery far more than a simple hot sho and even
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  Speaker 1: adding light movement in the bath didn't enhance the effect.
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  Speaker 1: It was really the heat stimulus alone that drove the
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  Speaker 1: increased adaptation, and that's the first clue that immersion maybe
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  Speaker 1: doing something unique. Then there was another study that added
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  Speaker 1: to this also this year, and the researcher lead researcher
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  Speaker 1: was at Tenkio and they compared three forms of passive
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  Speaker 1: heat and this was very interesting. I've been waiting for
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  Speaker 1: somebody to do this today. They compared time in a
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  Speaker 1: far infrared sauna and then they had a traditional sauna
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  Speaker 1: at eighty degrees centigrade that's what a lot of the
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  Speaker 1: research used. And then they had hot water immersion in
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  Speaker 1: a hot tub for forty point five degrees centigrade and
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  Speaker 1: all of them for forty five minutes, and there were
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  Speaker 1: twenty healthy adults. They completed all three conditions, which is
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  Speaker 1: really cool when they do all of them. So if
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  Speaker 1: you follow longevity research or influencers, there's lots to talk
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  Speaker 1: about the benefits of sauna, and most people will say
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  Speaker 1: traditional sauna is better than far infra red and there
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  Speaker 1: is more research around it. But what they actually find
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  Speaker 1: and they looked at increases in core body temperature, which
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  Speaker 1: is important for reasons they're getting too in. A second
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  Speaker 1: is that the far infrared sauna and barely moved core
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  Speaker 1: temperature at all. The traditional sauna increased it by about
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  Speaker 1: zero point four degrees centigrade, but the hot water immersion
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  Speaker 1: group increased their core temperature by one point one degree centigrade.
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  Speaker 1: Now this is really interesting to me because all of
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  Speaker 1: the research that I have seen suggests that you need
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  Speaker 1: to increase core body temperature by one degree in order
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  Speaker 1: to activate heat chock proteins. And heat chock proteins are
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  Speaker 1: a special class of stress response proteins that drive these
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  Speaker 1: cellular pathways that actually improve our health and are strongly
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  Speaker 1: tied into longevity as well. So the bath that warm
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  Speaker 1: soothing relatively gentle bath produced almost three times the thermal
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  Speaker 1: load of the sauna, and interestingly, cardiac got pout also
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  Speaker 1: jumped dramatically during the immersion by three point seven leaders
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  Speaker 1: per minute, and that was about sixty percent more than
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  Speaker 1: the traditional finish sauna. But the most interesting part for
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  Speaker 1: me was that it was only the hot bath that
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  Speaker 1: provoked a measurable immune response, and the guys who did
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  Speaker 1: when they did the hot bath, they are interlooking six
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  Speaker 1: levels increased, their natural killer sales increase, which are important
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  Speaker 1: immune sales, and CD eight plus T sales also increased
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  Speaker 1: twenty four to forty eight hours later and the sauna.
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  Speaker 1: Both of the saunas didn't even come close. So it's
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  Speaker 1: pretty rare that we find a very simple practice like
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  Speaker 1: a hot bath beating a finish sauna in terms of
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  Speaker 1: physiological impact. Anybody who's followed the researchers will know that
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  Speaker 1: there's a hayper research coming out of Finland that shows
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  Speaker 1: that regular sauna actually improves health and longevity. But it
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  Speaker 1: would appear, at least from this study, that you need
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  Speaker 1: spend a lot more time in the sauna than you
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  Speaker 1: would do in hot bath. And let's explore why it's
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  Speaker 1: really it's all about heat transfer, because water conducts heat
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  Speaker 1: twenty five times more effectively than our That's why getting
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  Speaker 1: in cold water at ten degrees centigrade is a shitload
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  Speaker 1: worse than being in colder at ten degrees centigrade. So
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  Speaker 1: even if the temperature is lower in the bath, the
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  Speaker 1: body is absorbing much more heat, and that leads us
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  Speaker 1: into the whole idea about heat shock proteins. These are
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  Speaker 1: the bodies internal repair squad and much more. And we
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  Speaker 1: know there's a bucket load of research around heat shock
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  Speaker 1: proteins and particularly heat chock protein seventy that is produced
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  Speaker 1: when your body senses thermal stress, whether that's being in
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  Speaker 1: the sauna, being in a hot bath, or exercising in
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  Speaker 1: the heat. And what these heat shok proteins do. They
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  Speaker 1: get activated and they repair damage proteins within our cells,
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  Speaker 1: but they also support mitochondrial function. They improve the resilience
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  Speaker 1: of your cells, and they play a role in a
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  Speaker 1: number of different longevity pathways. And as I said earlier,
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  Speaker 1: a rise of around one degree centigrade and core body
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  Speaker 1: temperature is enough to activate heat shock proteins. So this
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  Speaker 1: recent research is backed up by other research, a whole
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  Speaker 1: heap of it around heat shock proteins. So, for instance,
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  Speaker 1: a really interesting twenty eleven paper by Coon and an
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  Speaker 1: at All that showed that was the one that first
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  Speaker 1: showed that core body increases of roughly one degree centigrade
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  Speaker 1: triggered a heat shark protein expression during heat stress. Then
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  Speaker 1: in twenty nineteen Gibson and colleagues they demonstrated activation of
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  Speaker 1: protective genes after heat stress sufficient to raise core body
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  Speaker 1: temperature above the baseline Horowitz. In two thousand and seven,
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  Speaker 1: they reviewed how repeated heat exposure actually induces cross tolerance,
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  Speaker 1: the cross stress or effect enhancing overall stress resilience by
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  Speaker 1: activating heat shark protein pathways, so making the body more
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  Speaker 1: resilient at a cellular level. And the Gucci and colleagues
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  Speaker 1: in twenty twelve they showed that sauna exposure this was
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  Speaker 1: a longer duration, increases circulating stress hormones and heat shark proteins.
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  Speaker 1: And Faulkner and colleagues In twenty seventeen they did a
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  Speaker 1: nice review summarizing how passive hating elevates tachhart protein levels
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  Speaker 1: and influences inflammatory signaling. But the new studies that I
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  Speaker 1: talked about right at the start, they're really important here
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  Speaker 1: because hot water immersion was the only modality that reliably
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  Speaker 1: pushed core body temperature above that critical one degree threshold.
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  Speaker 1: So it's not saying that saunas are useless. It's just
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  Speaker 1: that you need to spend more time in a sauna.
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  Speaker 1: One little hack that you can do, And I have
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  Speaker 1: trialed this before and I've done my own self experiment
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  Speaker 1: on it is to exercise vigorously, but before you get
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  Speaker 1: into the sauna, whether it's an infrared sona or a
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  Speaker 1: normal sonar, because the exercise is going to boost your
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  Speaker 1: core body temperature, and it's like having been in the
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  Speaker 1: sauna without being in the sauna, So you probably need
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  Speaker 1: less time if you're getting in straight after a workout. Right.
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  Speaker 1: But the key takeover here is that heat works because
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  Speaker 1: it's a stressor it's a hormetic stressor, that it's a
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  Speaker 1: small dose of stress that forces the body to adapt
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  Speaker 1: in many, many beneficial ways. You know, in the short
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  Speaker 1: term physiologically or heart rate rises, your blood vessels dilate,
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  Speaker 1: the blood flow to the muscles, and the brain increases.
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  Speaker 1: Inflammation rises initially, then reduces and falls below baseline afterwards.
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  Speaker 1: But importantly, immune sales are mobilized and heat chock proteins
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  Speaker 1: actually repair cellular damage, so you get a net benefit
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  Speaker 1: because of the hormetic stressor. And it's the same principle
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  Speaker 1: as exercise. Stress plus recovery equals positive adaptation. And the
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  Speaker 1: take on here is that hot water immersion getting into
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  Speaker 1: the hot water in particular with it's a hot tub
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  Speaker 1: or hot bath that seems to be the quickest way
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  Speaker 1: to hit that one degree core body temperature consistently and safely.
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  Speaker 1: And I guess the takeout here. Look, I'm a big
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  Speaker 1: fan of sauna. It's not just for the health benefits
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  Speaker 1: but also the relaxation benefits. But you know, if you're
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  Speaker 1: flipping and flopping about should I spend a bucket load
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  Speaker 1: of money on a sauna and much one should I get? Maybe?
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  Speaker 1: Should just get a hot tub or have regular hot baths.
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  Speaker 1: That's it for this week, folks, Catch you next time. Hey,