Today's podcast features a conversation I had when I was in Finland with one of the world's foremost researchers of the sauna, Dr.

Yari Lalkonen. Yari holds a PhD and an MD. What makes this conversation very interesting is that Yari not only comes to it as an actual

researcher of the sauna, but also as a cardiologist. Often when I talk about the sauna, I may sometimes refer to animal studies, especially when it comes to

molecular evidence. But it is Dr. Lalkonen's lab that actually makes the single most convincing case that sauna use has real benefits in humans.

It is his research that has shown that long-term sauna use appears to reduce heart-related mortality, but even more surprisingly also may have a strong effect on what is known as

all-cause mortality, which literally means death from all causes, which sounds a whole lot like longevity if you think about it.

Moreover, since this conversation was recorded, Dr. Lalkonen's lab released yet another publication which showed a really strong association with the reduction in the risk of dementia and Alzheimer's disease by 66% and 65% respectively at a 20-year follow-up, which further strengthsens the case that sauna therapy may be more than just relaxing, but may actually be a great tool for even improving health span.

In both the study showing reduced memory illness and reduced all-cause mortality, the effect follows a dose response relationship with the group showing the strongest reductions in risk by frequenting the sauna at least four times a week for at least 20 minutes at 174 degrees Fahrenheit or 79 degrees Celsius.

In fact, one of the more interesting observations made by Dr. Lalkonen in this podcast is that time spent in the sauna appears to be a very important factor with shorter sauna durations having a much less robust effect.

Okay, enough preamble. Let's get this show on the road onto the podcast.

Hello, everyone. I am in Finland sitting here with Dr. Yari Lalkonen. I'm a little excited to be sitting here with Yari because I've talked quite a bit about his research involving using sauna and how that has been shown to improve cardiovascular health and also improve overall longevity.

To my knowledge, this is actually your work is the first research that I have actually seen in humans to show that using the sauna can improve longevity.

Maybe we can start off by talking about this study that you did on published about a year ago, I believe, in the Journal of American Medical Association, Jama.

Looking at the use of the sauna and sauna frequency and cardiovascular related mortality and overall mortality rate.

So can you tell us a little bit about the study itself?

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Thank you. Our study is based on middle-aged population from Eastern Finland and at baseline we measured the use of sauna how many times per week and how long time per one session on what was the temperature.

And on the basis of this information, we have studied association between the use of sauna and fatal cardiovascular outcomes and mortality.

And in this study we found really that sauna use was inversely associated with the risk of fatal coronary artery events and all-course mortality.

And after assessment for other risk factors which have been also measured in this big population-based study, there was still a significant association between the use of sauna and these outcomes.

Yeah, so if I remember correctly your study showed that men that use the sauna two to three times a week had a 27% lower cardiovascular related mortality compared to men that used it one time a week.

And men that use the sauna four to seven times a week actually had a 50% lower cardiovascular related mortality than men that use the sauna one time a week.

And that is very robust.

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