Life-saving spas
Even with some 24 million people worldwide now living with Alzheimer’s disease, around 800,000 in the Philippines, the search for a cure remains elusive, and caring for patients is a heavy burden on family, friends, and the health system. Hopes for cures and preventives have focused mainly on medicines and on lifestyle changes ranging from diet to exercise.
In recent years, hopes have been raised for a rather surprising and potentially effective preventive method: spas or hot steam baths. Perhaps the research findings—still very preliminary but building up—shouldn’t be too surprising when you look at the wide distribution of cultures that have steam baths, many tapping into natural resources. Appropriately, Mikkel Aaland, who wrote a book on sweat baths (appropriately titled “Sweat”), notes that sweat baths are as common as baking bread and fermenting grapes into wine. I’ll name some of these traditional sweat baths toward the end of the article, including those found in the Philippines.
Ironically, medical interest in the spas’ medical use first came out of a Finnish study, with the Finns known to love spas. But in 1976, a British Army physician alerted the medical world to the epidemic of fatal heart attacks among middle-aged Finnish men. But note that this physician speculated it was the sauna (sauna is the place where you get the steam bath) that, with temperatures going beyond 80 degrees Celsius, was too stressful for the cardiovascular system.
There are so many studies now being published on the super spas, a recent summary appearing in the science journal New Scientist (July 13, 2026). In more recent years, longer-term studies found other improvements in health, including reduced risks of dementia in Alzheimer’s disease, dementia being impaired cognition, including memory, resulting in impaired day-to-day function.
It’s paradoxical reading about the links between heat as therapy and a disease like Alzheimer’s. We tend to think of heat as a major burden on health, and yet we’re being told now that it’s good to have yourself enclosed in a room with high heat, making people sweat, the more the better.
The Finnish Kuopio Ischaemic Heart Disease Risk Factor Study enrolled 2,600 middle-aged men in a long-term study of day-to-day habits, family history, and work, and looked for links to heart attacks, strokes, and cardiovascular risk factors. In 2001, researchers “remembered”—a common form of “dementia” among medical scientists—that they did not have women in their study. They added 1,000 women. They also added sauna practices.
The forgetful researchers found that frequent sauna bathing was inversely correlated with heart attacks and other cardiovascular events (don’t you love the way medical people use the term “events”?). An example: men who used saunas two to three times a week had fatal heart attacks at a rate that was 22 percent lower than those who used the sauna only once a week. Men who used the sauna four to seven times a week had a 63 percent reduction in their heart attack events. There were also reductions in overall death rates for sauna aficionados. No figures on fatal heart attacks among those who didn’t have saunas at all.
The simplest explanation the researchers had is that the stress from the heat was good, increasing blood flow and dilating blood vessels, just like exercise.
There are other explanations being further studied, especially regarding how saunas prevent plaques from building up in the heart (yes, just like teeth, we can get plaques that then prevent a healthier flow of blood, which causes cardiovascular disease).
I am sure more developments in research will be released in the near future, including the variations in spas across the world. The New Scientist mentioned the traditional spas that seem to be useful: the Native American sweat lodges, the Mexican temazcal, the Russian banya (but high alcoholism in Russia reduces the spa’s benefits), the Turkish hammam, the Korean jjimjilbang, and the Japanese onsen (a whole tourist industry in itself, with spring baths set in scenic spots). The onsen got me thinking—our springs in Los Baños actually draw Japanese and Korean tourists more than Filipinos. Something to think about.
Okay, naughty boys might be thinking about the Filipino variety where the spelling of spa has been mutated with a three-letter suffix. No, I definitely would not advise that as therapy—besides being rude in the way the sauna gets messed up, you could get a heart attack instead of preventing one. Imagine the tabloid headlines.
Do the spas with companions, but keep the fun clean and mindful—there are also limits as to how long you can stay in the hot springs.
The anthropologist in me is also interested in other forms of sweat baths, e.g., the Chinese foot spa, which elders in my family loved, swearing they kept away coughs and colds and COVID-19.
Will keep you posted!
—————-
michael.tan@inquirer.net
