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Randomized trial · measured other health measures

2-week trial in 188 people with heart failure: far infrared sauna raised heart pumping

Miyata and colleagues · Journal of cardiology · 2008

Original title: Beneficial effects of Waon therapy on patients with chronic heart failure: results of a prospective multicenter study.

Under review. A person has not yet checked this summary against the paper. It is written from the PubMed abstract. Until a person checks it, search engines are asked not to list this page.

What the study found

Points to benefit

Ejection fraction rose from 31.6+/-10.4% to 34.6+/-10.6% (p<0.0001) with sauna but not in controls. BNP fell from 542+/-508 pg/ml to 394+/-410 pg/ml (p<0.001); not in controls.

The study at a glance

Type of study
Randomized trial
Who or what was studied
188 people · people with chronic heart failure on standard treatment
What was tested
Far infrared dry sauna at 60 degrees C for 15 min daily for 2 weeks, then rest, vs standard treatment alone
What it measured
Several kinds of outcomes
How long
2 weeks
Who has a stake
No disclosure in PubMed
No disclosure in PubMed.
Journal
Journal of cardiology, 2008
Source
PubMed record 18922381. This page is based on the abstract only.

How much this study counts

  • ✓Randomized: people were put into groups by chance, so the groups start out alike.
  • •Medium size: 188 people.
  • –Short: 2 weeks. Longer-term effects are unknown.
  • •Measured several kinds of outcomes.
  • •The PubMed record has no conflict-of-interest statement.
  • •Summarized from the PubMed abstract only. The full paper may hold details the abstract leaves out.

✓ Strength– Limit• Note

These points come from fixed rules about the type of study, its size and length, what it measured, and who has a stake. Every study on Digestery gets the same rules.

Where this study sits

Each dot is one on-topic paper on this question. Steps near the top answer the question more directly.

↑ Stronger evidence

  1. Trials in people: heart disease, blood pressure and death

    3

    3 benefit

  2. Trials in people: other measures

    2

    1 benefit, 1 no difference

    ↑ This study is the ringed dot

  3. Trials in people: lab tests or safety

    5

    2 benefit, 1 mixed, 2 no difference

  4. Population studies

    4

    4 benefit

  5. Blood levels and genes

    0

    None among the papers we read.

↓ Weaker evidence

  • Points to benefit
  • Mixed
  • No difference
  • No direction
  • Points to harm

How it fits with the other research

The short answer to “Does sauna use lower heart disease risk?”

Possibly, but not proven in trials.

Confidence: low. Based on 21 on-topic papers.

Read the full answer

Few other papers sit on the same step, so there is little to compare it with.

Other papers on the same step

See all 21 studies on this question

How this page was made

Label

First read of the abstract
Claude Sonnet
Independent second read
Claude Haiku
Differences settled
The reviewer corrected 1 field after reading the abstract. Claude Opus 5.5.
Headline
Claude Sonnet, from the checked study record. A script checked its numbers and wording.
Numbers
Checked against the abstract by a script
“How much this study counts”
Fixed rules, the same for every study
Source check by a person
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