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Population study: followed a group

Study of 2575 Finnish men: low sauna use went with higher death risk

Kunutsor and colleagues · Scandinavian cardiovascular journal · 2024

Original title: Sauna bathing and mortality risk: unraveling the interaction with systolic blood pressure in a cohort of Finnish men.

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What the study found

Points to benefit

Low vs high sauna use was linked to 16% higher death risk (HR 1.16, 95% CI 1.02-1.31). High blood pressure with low sauna use: HR 1.47 (1.24-1.74). High blood pressure with high sauna use: HR 1.24 (0.98-1.57).

The study at a glance

Type of study
Population study: followed a group
Who or what was studied
2,575 people · Finnish men aged 42 to 61
What was tested
Sauna use (low: 2 or fewer sessions a week vs high: 3-7 a week) and blood pressure level, followed a median 27.8 years
What it measured
The question itself: heart disease, blood pressure and death
Who has a stake
No disclosure in PubMed
No disclosure in PubMed.
Journal
Scandinavian cardiovascular journal, 2024
Source
PubMed record 38410962. This page is based on the abstract only.

How much this study counts

  • –Shows a link, not a cause: people chose their own habits, and other differences between them may explain the result.
  • ✓Followed people over time, so habits were recorded before the outcome happened.
  • •2,575 people.
  • ✓Measured the question itself: heart disease, blood pressure and death.
  • •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

  3. Trials in people: lab tests or safety

    5

    2 benefit, 1 mixed, 2 no difference

  4. Population studies

    4

    4 benefit

    ↑ This study is the ringed dot

  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

Of the other 3 papers on the same step: 3 benefit. This one found benefit. It agrees with most of them.

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 two reads agreed on every checked field. 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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