Episode 39
Surprising Health Benefits of Sauna and Cold Exposure with Dr. Rhonda Patrick
Rhonda Perciavalle Patrick has done extensive research on aging, cancer, and nutrition. She is a Ph.D. in biomedical science from the University of Tennessee Health Science Center and St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital. She also has a Bachelor’s of Science degree in biochemistry/chemistry from the University of California, San Diego. She did her graduate research at St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital where she investigated the link between mitochondrial metabolism, apoptosis, and cancer. Dr. Patrick trained as a postdoctoral fellow at Children’s Hospital Oakland Research Institute with Dr. Bruce Ames, where she investigated the effects of micronutrient (vitamins and minerals) inadequacies on metabolism, inflammation, DNA damage, and aging and whether supplementation can reverse the damage. In addition, she also investigated the role of vitamin D in brain function, behavior, and other physiological functions. Dr. Patrick has also done research on aging at the Salk Institute for Biological Sciences.
This presentation was filmed during Biohacker Summit, in October 2016, in Helsinki, Finland.
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Key moments and takeaways:
00:00 Introduction by Teemu Arina
01:26 Health benefits of sauna and cold exposure
04:14 Exercise and resilience
07:32 Sauna and longevity
11:23 Heat shock proteins and longevity
17:06 Senescent cells and aging
17:45 FOXO3 gene and longevity
21:06 Heat and cold Stress
24:47 Mitochondrial biogenesis
29:18 Sauna & athletic performance
Transcript
Music.
Speaker:Hello my friends and welcome to Biohacker's podcast. I'm your host Teemu Arina from
Speaker:Biohacker Center and in today's episode we are going to talk about the health
Speaker:benefits of sauna and cold exposure. Our guest today is Dr. Rhonda Patrick who
Speaker:gave a presentation on the topic at Biohacker Summit in 2016 in Helsinki,
Speaker:Finland. It is still relevant so I decided to share that amazing recording with you. Dr. Rhonda Patrick is a renowned biochemist and expert in the field of
Speaker:nutrigenomics. Her research has been published in several prestigious scientific journals and she has worked at renowned institutions like the Salt
Speaker:Lake Institute for Biological Sciences. Dr. Rhonda Patrick has focused her research on topics such as mitochondrial metabolism, aging and the effect of
Speaker:micronutrient deficiencies on our health. She's also passionate about promoting a.
Speaker:Preventive approach to health and longevity by advocating for practices like exercise, sauna use and cold exposure. Today we will be listening Dr. Rhonda Patrick talking
Speaker:about hormetic stressors and how practices like sauna use and cold exposure can have health
Speaker:benefits. In this talk she dives into the science behind these practices and shares her insights
Speaker:on how they can improve our overall health and well-being. So without further ado let's listen
Speaker:to what Dr. Rhonda Patrick has to say.
Speaker:I'm very excited to be here in a country that has more saunas than people because I love saunas.
Speaker:And apparently you guys must also like saunas. Today my talk is going to focus much on some of the health benefits
Speaker:that saunas have on the brain and also on overall longevity.
Speaker:I'm also going to dive a little bit into cold water and how cold water can also affect the brain as well as metabolism and other health benefits as well.
Speaker:But today my talk is going to begin with a personal story about stress.
Speaker:Stress. So there's good stress and there's bad stress. For me, when I was a graduate
Speaker:student getting my PhD, I was experiencing a combination of both good and bad stress.
Speaker:The good stress was I was learning how to be a scientist. I was learning tools and techniques
Speaker:to answer interesting scientific questions that I had. And that was good. I was adapting
Speaker:to that stress. But there's also bad stress that I experienced in graduate school, and
Speaker:came along with many different exams, multiple exams, failed experiments, experiments that would
Speaker:take me three months to set up and would fail, and 16-hour experiments I had to perform again
Speaker:and again. I was not adapting to that stress. I was experiencing a sense of, at times, crippling
Speaker:anxiety, which I think everyone in this room has probably experienced some form of anxiety in their
Speaker:their lives before so we can all relate to that. So I was not adapting to that
Speaker:stress and it was having negative effects on my health. I was getting poor sleep. So I decided to try to counter that stress, bad stress, with good stress.
Speaker:And good stress is a type of stress that is a short-term stressor on the body,
Speaker:something that is slightly stressful, that activates all these genetic pathways that are hard encoded in our genes that are able to deal with stress.
Speaker:And so what ends up happening is that tiny bit of short-term stressor ends up not only
Speaker:compensating for that stress, but you end up having a net resilience effect.
Speaker:And this is often referred to as hormesis. So you have a little tiny bit of stress and it activates all these stress response pathways.
Speaker:The reason we have these stress response genetic pathways is because life itself is stressful,
Speaker:normal living, normal breathing and oxygen and eating food causes stress on our body.
Speaker:We are making metabolic byproducts, reactive oxygen species, like every second it's happening
Speaker:right now as I talk. So we're able to handle this, these types of stresses with various genetic
Speaker:pathways. But when you can flip that switch on to those genetic pathways with something that's just
Speaker:slightly stressful in the body, something like exercise, then you have this net resilience
Speaker:effect and you adapt to that stress and you're able to handle it better and not
Speaker:only are you able to handle that stress better but you become better.
Speaker:Additionally, another type of hormetic stressor is actually heat stress. So
Speaker:So something like the sauna, which is a heat stress.
Speaker:That's something that I started to do in graduate school. So I lived across the street from a gym.
Speaker:It had a sauna. I started using it every day. And I was using it quite frequently,
Speaker:probably about five days a week. And I started to notice that I felt really good. Like my mood was
Speaker:noticeably enhanced. And I also was able to handle stress better. And my anxiety was down.
Speaker:And I was trying to figure out what was going on in my brain. Like how was the sauna
Speaker:affecting my brain because it was, it was very obvious to me. So I decided to dive into the
Speaker:literature and try to figure that out. So most people are familiar with the feel-good endorphin.
Speaker:What you may not be familiar with is the counter to that, dynorphin. And dynorphin is activated
Speaker:upon heat stress. And the reason for that is because dynorphin cools the body down. Dynorphin
Speaker:is the counter to endorphin because it makes you feel uncomfortable and dysphoric. So heat
Speaker:stress will release dynorphin from a presynaptic neuron and that dynorphin will then bind to
Speaker:another receptor called the kappa opioid receptor. And when that happens, that's when you begin
Speaker:to feel uncomfortable and dysphoric. And that's the feeling you usually feel when you're hot
Speaker:and you're in the sitting in the sauna or you just feel bad and you're like, oh, I just
Speaker:want to get out, it's too hot, or you're exercising really vigorously, you're
Speaker:feeling hot and you want to stop, that's dynorphin. That's what's making you feel uncomfortable.
Speaker:You may be thinking to yourself, I thought you said you felt really good.
Speaker:What are you talking about here?
Speaker:This is where it gets really interesting because this pathway, this mechanistic
Speaker:pathway that is the thermoregulatory control pathway, you make dynorphin to
Speaker:cool your body down, but you also feel uncomfortable.
Speaker:What happens is this actually changes the way your brain responds to the feel-good endorphins.
Speaker:So endorphins bind to another type of receptor called the mu opioid receptor.
Speaker:And when dynorphin is released and you feel uncomfortable, this causes new opioid receptors to make more of them, and it sensitizes them to endorphin.
Speaker:So that means the next time that you make endorphin, whether that's from exercise or the sauna, because it also causes you to release endorphin,
Speaker:or if it's from laughter or giving someone a hug, whatever it is that's causing you to release endorphin,
Speaker:you are going to feel so much better because that endorphin is going to bind
Speaker:to those receptors that are really sensitive to that endorphin. And so the effects are lasting and they last longer and you feel better. So it lowers
Speaker:depression and it helps with anxiety, it helps with all these things when you're,
Speaker:sensitized to endorphin. And so it's quite possible that this is actually why
Speaker:the sauna was able to help me deal with my anxiety and help me to deal with
Speaker:stress and made me feel really good. But in addition to affecting the brain, the sauna
Speaker:also appears to affect overall longevity. So this was actually a study that came out
Speaker:of the University of Eastern Finland. And the study followed around 2000 middle-aged
Speaker:Finnish men that were using the sauna frequently. And the study followed them for 20 years and
Speaker:measured who died of any sort of non-accidental death. So people that died from cardiovascular-related
Speaker:diseases, people that died from cancer or neurodegenerative diseases, respiratory
Speaker:diseases. So all these diseases were measured.
Speaker:These men were followed for 20 years. And what this study found was that men that used the sauna two to three times a week.
Speaker:They were 27% less likely to die from any cardiovascular related disease compared to
Speaker:men that use the sauna one time a week.
Speaker:Men that use the sauna four to seven times a week, they were 50% less likely to die from
Speaker:cardiovascular related diseases throughout the 20 year period compared to men that only
Speaker:use the sauna one time a week. So there was a dose-dependent effect that was improving
Speaker:cardiovascular health and causing these men that were using the sauna more frequently.
Speaker:Be healthier and to die less of or be less likely to die of cardiovascular disease in
Speaker:that 20-year time span. Turns out not just sauna frequency was important, but also the
Speaker:duration of time spent in the sauna. So those same men that stayed in the sauna for greater
Speaker:than 19 minutes, they have the most robust effect on lowering cardiovascular-related
Speaker:mortality compared to men that only use the sauna less than 11 minutes. So, both the frequency
Speaker:and duration of sauna was very important for lowering cardiovascular risk. There are a
Speaker:variety of different mechanisms that have also been put out there for why using the
Speaker:sauna can lower cardiovascular-related mortality. Chiefly among them is the sauna in some ways
Speaker:mimics cardiovascular exercise. So when you sit in the sauna, in a hot sauna, your heart
Speaker:rate elevates to 100 to 150 beats per minute, which really is equivalent to moderate intensity
Speaker:physical exercise. Also, plasma volume expands and increases and blood flow increases to
Speaker:the heart. And this lowers cardiovascular strain. So your heart has to do less work,
Speaker:for each beat.
Speaker:That it's pumping blood to deliver oxygen to your tissues. So it's lowering cardiovascular
Speaker:strain. It's been shown to lower blood pressure, improve endothelial cell function,
Speaker:endothelial cells line your blood vessels. It's been shown to increase and improve left ventricular
Speaker:function. So lots of different things that the sauna has been shown to improve in terms of
Speaker:cardiovascular risk factors. Turns out, cardiovascular disease was not the only thing that the sauna
Speaker:lowered the mortality rate for, it turned out that all these other non-accidental deaths
Speaker:were also lowered. So men that used the sauna two to three times a week had a 24% lower
Speaker:all-cause mortality than men that used the sauna only one time a week. Men that used
Speaker:the sauna four to seven times a week were 40% less likely to die of cancer, cardiovascular
Speaker:disease, neurodegenerative disease, respiratory diseases, and all these other non-accidental
Speaker:diseases that people come down with with age. This is very interesting, but before I get
Speaker:into the potential mechanisms, I want to point out that this study also measured a variety
Speaker:of different parameters that may affect the data, confounding factors they're called.
Speaker:So they measured the physical activity of people, their percent body fat, if they smoked
Speaker:or drank a lot of alcohol, their socioeconomic status. So all those things were considered
Speaker:when they were analyzing this data. So this data really is reflective of sauna use. But.
Speaker:The interesting thing is these men were 40% less likely to die of all these diseases.
Speaker:Why is that? What is the sauna doing? How is it affecting overall longevity? So to understand
Speaker:that we're going to have to turn to some animal studies and look at other molecular
Speaker:mechanisms where we know that heat has shown to affect longevity. Chiefly among them are
Speaker:heat shock proteins.
Speaker:So, heat shock proteins, as their name implies, are activated by heat.
Speaker:They're often referred to as HSPs, and they play a very important role inside of cells.
Speaker:Their role is to make sure that proteins maintain their three-dimensional structure.
Speaker:And that's really important because every protein inside your cell has a certain three-dimensional structure in space.
Speaker:And that three-dimensional structure is essential for that protein's normal function.
Speaker:And if you disrupt that three-dimensional structure, the protein can't function optimally.
Speaker:So for example, all your metabolic enzymes are specialized proteins, their three-dimensional
Speaker:structures are disrupted, they're not going to be working optimally.
Speaker:That's not the only thing that's important or the only reason why the three-dimensional
Speaker:structure is important.
Speaker:The three-dimensional structure of protein is getting damaged all the time.
Speaker:So just normal existence is damaging proteins in our body all the time.
Speaker:Every time we breathe in oxygen and we're eating food and our mitochondria are trying,
Speaker:to couple those together to generate energy.
Speaker:That generation of energy is really damaging because it also makes reactive byproducts
Speaker:that damage the proteins inside of our cell.
Speaker:And when they damage the proteins, the proteins become misfolded.
Speaker:Their three-dimensional structure is screwed up.
Speaker:And when they become misfolded, this disrupts the protein half-life.
Speaker:And what this ends up doing is that protein just sits around inside of the cell longer
Speaker:than it's supposed to. It's usually supposed to be gotten rid of sooner.
Speaker:And when it sits around inside of the cell, it starts to aggregate with other proteins
Speaker:that have been misfolded.
Speaker:So as we age, we start to get these protein aggregates that accumulate inside of our cells,
Speaker:outside of our cells, that happens in our brain.
Speaker:Amyloid beta is probably one of the key protein aggregates that people are familiar with that
Speaker:plays a role in brain aging as well as Alzheimer's disease.
Speaker:So these protein aggregates, they disrupt all sorts of things, and they're really, really
Speaker:bad, and they lead to neurodegenerative diseases. that play a role in cardiovascular disease.
Speaker:So the role that HSPs or heat shock proteins which are activated by heat is really important because when you have
Speaker:that protein that's damaged the heat shock proteins can repair that damage and they can make the protein fold back to its
Speaker:normal three dimensional structure.
Speaker:And this allows for the protein not to form aggregates.
Speaker:And that's why heat shock proteins have been shown in many different studies in animals and lower organisms to prevent Alzheimer's-like diseases, Parkinson's
Speaker:disease, and also cardiovascular disease. So heat shock proteins are very important.
Speaker:Just sort of as a proof of principle here, there's been a couple of studies that have looked at
Speaker:fruit flies and worms. These are lower organisms that Temu was talking about, the tardigrade.
Speaker:These organisms actually share a lot of human DNA. So Drosophila have 4% of these fruit fly genes are found in humans, which is quite a bit.
Speaker:So if you take a fly and you expose it to one single exposure of heat for 70 minutes,
Speaker:it extends their lifespan by 15%.
Speaker:Also, that was shown to be dependent on heat shock proteins because they have a version
Speaker:of heat shock proteins.
Speaker:Heat shock proteins have also been associated with human longevity.
Speaker:So humans that have a variation in a gene that makes heat shock proteins have exceptional longevity.
Speaker:But there's actually another pathway that's activated by heat, a longevity pathway, and that's FOXO3.
Speaker:So FOXO3 is a gene that is a master regulator of many other genes because it activates those
Speaker:genes and it deactivates those genes.
Speaker:Many of the genes that it's regulating have to do with stress resistance, have to do with
Speaker:being able to handle stress.
Speaker:And what do I mean by stress? That same damage I was talking about.
Speaker:So just the normal damage that we're being exposed to every day, not even to mention
Speaker:the damage we're exposed to from external factors like benzene from air pollution and
Speaker:other carcinogens that we're exposed to. That's also damaging things in our body. But that,
Speaker:same damage that damages proteins damages our DNA. And when it damages our DNA, that
Speaker:can potentially lead to mutations that could lead to cancer. FOXO3 activates genes that
Speaker:are involved in DNA repair that repair that damage before it ever can form a mutation.
Speaker:Additionally, FOXO3 activates genes that are involved in cell death.
Speaker:So if a cell does get a mutation that could potentially lead to cancer, the cell will
Speaker:sacrifice itself and it will die.
Speaker:It's a protective mechanism against cancer.
Speaker:That same damage that damages proteins, that damages DNA, also damages cells.
Speaker:And when the cell accumulates enough damage as we age, it accumulates more and more damage,
Speaker:that cell eventually becomes what's called senescent.
Speaker:And senescent cells aren't cells that are, they're not alive, but they're not dead.
Speaker:They're kind of just sitting around inside of a tissue or an organ, and they're secreting
Speaker:these pro-inflammatory molecules and cytokines that are damaging other nearby cells, accelerating
Speaker:the aging process and causing them to become senescent.
Speaker:So it's really bad. FOXO3 activates genes, antioxidants genes, that prevent that damage from ever hitting the cell.
Speaker:They also, FOXO3 activates genes that if the cell does become senescent and is damaged,
Speaker:that are involved in autophagy and clearing away that damage.
Speaker:But just to highlight how important the autophagy process is in clearing away senescent cells,
Speaker:there was a recent study in mice. Mice also accumulate senescent cells as they age,
Speaker:and they were given a chemical compound that anytime a senescent cell cropped up in one of
Speaker:their organs, it got rid of that senescent cell. And that extended the lifespan of the mice by 20%,
Speaker:so they actually lived 20% longer than their normal average lifespan. So senescent cells are
Speaker:definitely accelerating the aging process and anything you can do to get rid of senescent
Speaker:cells or prevent them is going to positively affect aging.
Speaker:So FOXO3 also activates genes that are involved in stem cell function.
Speaker:Stem cells are very important because they replace all the other cell types in our tissues.
Speaker:For example, they make more white blood cells. We lose white blood cells as we age and we become more susceptible to infections and
Speaker:respiratory diseases as we get older.
Speaker:Stem cells also make more stem cells, which is good because we lose stem cells as we age
Speaker:as well. And we want to keep replenishing our organs. We want to keep replenishing the
Speaker:cells in each of our organs so that they keep maintaining the function of whatever they're
Speaker:supposed to do. FOXO3 activates those genes as well. It's pretty badass. But if you're
Speaker:not convinced yet, I'm going to show you a study that's actually my early work when I
Speaker:was a young scientist at the Salk Institute. It's actually one of the first biology experiments
Speaker:I did and really got me hooked on biology. So this worm here is a C. elegans worm and
Speaker:And it lives on average about 15 days of lifespan.
Speaker:It shares about 60% of its genes are found in humans.
Speaker:It has a version of the FOXO3 gene.
Speaker:So this worm has been genetically engineered to express human amyloid beta 42, that toxic
Speaker:peptide that aggregates and forms plaques and brains of people as they age and plays
Speaker:a role in Alzheimer's disease.
Speaker:It's been engineered to express it in its muscle tissue, lower muscle tissue.
Speaker:So as it ages, the amyloid plaques aggregate in its muscle tissue and it can't move, it becomes paralyzed.
Speaker:See, it's not moving its lower body, it's just moving its nose around.
Speaker:That worm right there is 12 days old, so it's at the end of its lifespan.
Speaker:So the next worm I'm going to show you is the same age as that worm.
Speaker:It's also been genetically engineered to have amyloid beta plaques in its muscle tissue to get paralyzed.
Speaker:The only difference is that it's also been genetically manipulated to have FOXO3 gene active all the time.
Speaker:So you can see it moving around just fine. Same age as the other worm, day 12.
Speaker:The only difference was that FOXO3 gene prevented those aggregates from accumulating in its muscle tissue and causing it to become paralyzed, so it
Speaker:aged much better than the other worm. And if,
Speaker:you're not convinced with worm longevity, then perhaps you'll be convinced with
Speaker:human longevity. The FOXO3a gene has been associated with human longevity.
Speaker:We all have different variations of the same gene. So we have the same genes but
Speaker:different variations of these genes. It's what give people blue eyes versus brown eyes.
Speaker:Some people have a version of FOXO3a that makes it active all the time. So it's, you
Speaker:know, it's always activating these antioxidant genes, it's activating autophagy genes, it's
Speaker:activating stem cell function genes, it's activating DNA repair genes. So these genes
Speaker:are constantly being activated. And so people that have that are able to deal with all sorts
Speaker:of damage so much better because they can just repair it constantly. Those people are
Speaker:are 2.7 times more likely to become a centenarian to live to be 100, which is pretty impressive.
Speaker:So in summary, when we're talking about the sauna and longevity, the sauna sensitizes
Speaker:the brain to endorphin, and it does that by increasing dynorphin, which makes you feel
Speaker:uncomfortable and as a consequence, you feel better because you become sensitive to the
Speaker:feel-good endorphin. It improves cardiovascular function. It's been associated with lower
Speaker:cardiovascular rate of mortality, it improves cardiovascular function by lowering cardiovascular
Speaker:strain. It also improves overall longevity, possibly by many different mechanisms, activating
Speaker:heat shock proteins, which are important for maintaining the proper three-dimensional structure
Speaker:of proteins inside of our cells, and also by activating the FOXO3 gene, which is doing
Speaker:so much cool shit that's like really good and really important for the way we age. One
Speaker:The other thing that I want to mention that I didn't get into, it also increases growth
Speaker:hormone by two to threefold.
Speaker:Sometimes in cases, if you do multiple sauna treatments, it can increase growth hormone by up to 16-fold.
Speaker:I mean, growth hormone plays a very important role in many things, but improving repair
Speaker:of muscle damage is one thing that it's important for.
Speaker:I want to switch gears just for a minute here and talk a little bit about another type of stress or another type of hormetic stress, and that is cold stress, which I think you guys in Finland are also very accustomed to jumping in cold water as well.
Speaker:There's many different modalities for cold stress, jumping into a cold lake, taking a cold shower, jumping into an ice bath, walking around in the cool air and going into a cryotherapy chamber.
Speaker:These are all methods that can cold stress our body.
Speaker:And cold stress, much like heat stress, is a type of hormetic stress that activates all
Speaker:these genetic pathways that help us deal with stress.
Speaker:Probably one of the most robust responses to cold stress that I have seen in the literature.
Speaker:Is the robust increase in norepinephrine in the locus coruleus region of the brain.
Speaker:In the brain plays a very important role in focus and attention and vigilance, also in
Speaker:mood. So it makes you feel better. Norepinephrine is something that's actually pharmacologically
Speaker:targeted quite often. So it's used to treat depression and also ADHD, but it can be released
Speaker:by cold shocking the body. What kind of temperatures are we talking about here? We're talking about
Speaker:people that were walking around in 16 degree Celsius air temperature for six hours increased
Speaker:their norepinephrine by 260%. You don't have to spend that much time in the cold to get a
Speaker:norepinephrine increase. People that submerged their self in 4.4 degrees Celsius water for 20
Speaker:seconds were able to increase their norepinephrine by 200 to 300%. So the colder the water, the more
Speaker:robust the norepinephrine release, but also duration as well. So if you're in less cooler
Speaker:water then you don't have to stay in as long, for example. But these things have all been
Speaker:shown to be very robust in releasing norepinephrine.
Speaker:Something else very cool about norepinephrine, in addition to being a neurotransmitter, it actually
Speaker:acts as a hormone as well. We also release it in our body because it causes vasoconstriction,
Speaker:and that's one of the mechanisms that we use to conserve heat when we're cold.
Speaker:So another mechanism that we use to generate heat is also related to norepinephrine,
Speaker:and that has to do with increasing mitochondrial biogenesis in your adipose tissue and in your
Speaker:your muscle tissue. So mitochondrial biogenesis means new mitochondria. The
Speaker:mitochondrial biogenesis occurs with cold exposure. You can think about it, it
Speaker:makes perfect sense because as you generate energy as a byproduct you
Speaker:generate heat. And so this is a adaptive mechanism that occurs to help you warm
Speaker:up when you're cold. So this mitochondrial biogenesis that happens in
Speaker:the adipose tissue is often referred to as browning of fat. Also, as you have more
Speaker:mitochondria and your fat, because fat is where you're storing the most energy, you,
Speaker:start to burn that fat because the mitochondria are trying really hard to make heat because
Speaker:they want you to not die, they want you to warm up.
Speaker:The side effect is that you actually burn fat and so a lot of people like that as a
Speaker:potential mechanism to treat obesity.
Speaker:This is all regulated by norepinephrine. So that's very interesting because I just talked about norepinephrine and how it regulates
Speaker:mood, focus, tension, makes you feel good, helps with anxiety, but it also appears to
Speaker:regulate this process because if you block the brain's ability to respond to norepinephrine,
Speaker:then mitochondrial biogenesis does not occur upon cold exposure in adipose tissue.
Speaker:So that norepinephrine is very important for that.
Speaker:What kind of temperatures are we talking about for mitochondrial biogenesis?
Speaker:Those same humans that were walking around in 16 degrees Celsius weather for six hours,
Speaker:that had a 260% increase in norepinephrine experienced a 37% increase in browning of
Speaker:their adipose tissue. So they're able to brown their fat after walking around in 16 degrees
Speaker:Celsius weather, cool-ish weather, for six hours. Adipose tissue is not the only tissue that
Speaker:mitochondrial biogenesis occurs. The mitochondrial biogenesis also occurs in muscle tissue.
Speaker:That is not regulated by norepinephrine. That's regulated by another pathway,
Speaker:but it has been shown to be very robust. It activates something called PGC1-alpha.
Speaker:And what's interesting is that if you think about mitochondria, they're what allow us to
Speaker:use oxygen for energy. So if you have more mitochondria in your muscle tissue, then you're
Speaker:you're going to be able to more effectively use oxygen. And this is why mitochondrial
Speaker:biogenesis in muscle tissue has been shown to improve aerobic capacity, which, you know,
Speaker:uses oxygen. So men that actually submerge their legs in, I think it was about 10 degrees
Speaker:Celsius water for 10 minutes, they experience massive mitochondrial biogenesis in muscle
Speaker:tissue. The cold exposure has also been shown to improve, in very preliminary studies, to
Speaker:improve endurance in some athletes, including runners and cyclists and tennis players.
Speaker:So there's the ongoing study looking at how cold exposure may actually enhance endurance
Speaker:performance because of this mitochondrial biogenesis, among other things, it also reduces
Speaker:inflammation helps with recovery time.
Speaker:Lots of interesting stuff we've talked about today. We talked about how the sauna affects
Speaker:cardiovascular function, how it affects overall longevity, how it affects the brain,
Speaker:how it sensitizes the brain to endorphins. Talked about how it activates FOXO3 and how FOXO3 is
Speaker:a really important stress response genetic pathway that activates all these other amazing genes that
Speaker:help us deal with all the damage that we're constantly being exposed to and how it's
Speaker:it's involved in longevity. We talked about cold exposure and how it's important for norepinephrine, how norepinephrine helps you focus, it helps
Speaker:you feel good, and also helps with anxiety as well. And it causes the
Speaker:production of new mitochondria both in your adipose tissue and cold causes the
Speaker:production of new mitochondria in your muscle tissue and how that may play a.
Speaker:Role in endurance. Lots of interesting science going on in this field, but what
Speaker:I think many of you actually may be asking yourself is what about going from
Speaker:the hot sauna into the cold water, does going into the cold water after the hot sauna negate
Speaker:any of those effects? And the short answer is, I don't know. There's not really any empirical
Speaker:evidence that I've seen that suggests anything because no one's really looking at that. But
Speaker:I do know that going from a hot sauna into the cold water causes norepinephrine to be
Speaker:increased even more than either alone. So that's good. It implies there may be some
Speaker:synergistic effect. And I also know that cold shocking the body with cold water, whatever
Speaker:modality you're using, also activates heat shock proteins, not as robustly as heat does.
Speaker:But the fact that it activates the same genetic pathway that heat does, I think is good because
Speaker:it gives us hope that maybe these two things in combination are synergistically acting
Speaker:together and are improving overall longevity through similar mechanisms. But I know personally
Speaker:from doing it, it also just makes you feel really good. And I think that counts for something.
Speaker:So with that I will say thank you.
Speaker:Thank you, Dr. Rhonda Patrick for providing such an amazing summary on the health benefits of regular sauna use.
Speaker:Here are the top five health facts of the day about regular sauna use based on latest scientific evidence.
Speaker:Number one, multiple studies have found that regular sauna use can improve cardiovascular health and reduce risks of,
Speaker:cardiovascular events by reducing blood pressure, improving blood flow and increasing heart rate.
Speaker:Number two. Sauna use can improve cognitive function and reduce the risk of dementia as well as Alzheimer's disease.
Speaker:Actually people who use sauna four to seven times per week had about on average.
Speaker:65% lower risk of developing these conditions compared to those who use sauna only once a week.
Speaker:Number three. Sauna use has been shown to improve athletic performance, muscle recovery, increase endurance and reduce fatigue.
Speaker:Fatigue. Sauna use can also improve respiratory performance, including reduced symptoms of
Speaker:chronic bronchitis and asthma. Sauna use can help clear airways, reduce inflammation and
Speaker:increase lung capacity.
Speaker:4. Sauna use can boost the immune system by increasing the production of white blood cells
Speaker:and improving the body's ability to fight infections. Sweating in a sauna can help eliminate
Speaker:toxins and impurities from the body through the skin. This can help improve skin health
Speaker:and also aid in the elimination of heavy metals and other toxins from the body.
Speaker:Number five. Sauna use has been shown to promote relaxation,
Speaker:reduce stress levels, improve sleep quality and promote deep sleep.
Speaker:It increases the production of endorphins and reduces the levels of stress hormones.
Speaker:Just make sure that you don't use sauna too close to bedtime,
Speaker:as it can keep the heart rate elevated and affect the sleep architecture.
Speaker:Now, those are just some of the few benefits of regular sauna use.
Speaker:There is many more and we will be happy to share more in future episodes.
Speaker:So thank you very much for joining us for this episode. To learn more about us and biohacking, check out Biohackercenter.com,
Speaker:where you can find best content, supplements, technologies, courses and events
Speaker:such as the Biohacker Summit, so that you can take the guesswork out of how to champion
Speaker:healthy habits, prolong your health span and lead a productive life.
Speaker:Thank you very much and see you in the next episode.
