Clinical InvestigationSafety and Efficacy of Repeated Sauna Bathing in Patients With Chronic Systolic Heart Failure: A Preliminary Report
Section snippets
Methods
This study included 15 (12 men and 3 women) patients with chronic CHF (Table 1); 6 with idiopathic dilated cardiomyopathy, 1 with dilated phase of hypertrophic cardiomyopathy, 7 with old myocardial infarction, and 1 with valvular heart disease. Age of the patients ranged from 34 to 75 (mean 62 ± 15) years. Of these patients, 3 and 12 were in New York Heart Association (NYHA) functional class II and III, respectively. This study excluded patients with (1) acute myocardial infarction or unstable
Results
All patients enrolled in this study completed 4-week repeated sauna bathing without any adverse symptoms and events. Of 12 patients with NYHA functional class III, 3 improved to functional class II (Fig. 1). As shown in Table 2, the self-assessment quality-of-life questionnaire revealed that 13 of 15 patients were categorized as the improved group. Improvements of shortness of breath and fatigue were most evident. Body weight did not change (Table 3). Repeated sauna bathing decreased systemic
Discussion
The present study demonstrated for the first time that repeated 60°C sauna bathing for 4 weeks improved exercise tolerance and clinical symptoms in patients with chronic systolic CHF on conventional treatments. Moreover, LVEF was improved, and elevated plasma epinephrine and norepinephrine were decreased. No apparent adverse events were experienced. During the follow-up, sauna bathing reduced the number of hospital admission for CHF.
Most of patients were subjectively in NYHA functional class
Conclusions
Repeated 60°C sauna bathing for 4 weeks improved not only well-being but also exercise tolerance in chronic systolic CHF patients on conventional treatments. It is suggested that repeated sauna bathing is a safe and effective adjunctive therapy for chronic CHF.
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Reallocation of cutaneous and global blood circulation during sauna bathing through a closed-loop model
2022, Computer Methods and Programs in BiomedicineCitation Excerpt :It has been intensively explored for the amelioration of cardiovascular dysfunction, such as heart failure [4], hypertension [5], sudden cardiac death and coronary heart disease [6], and stroke [7]. For example, 4-week repeated SB significantly improve the left ventricular ejection fraction by approximately 4% in heart failure patients [4]. An investigation with a median follow-up period of 20.7 years concluded that there is a lower risk of sudden cardiac death in individuals who practice SB with a higher frequency or longer duration [6].
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Partially supported and by a Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research and by a grant for Academic Frontier Project from the Ministry of Education, Science, Sports, Culture, and Technology, Japan.