Weight Loss Options — Infrared Radiant Heat Saunas (IR Saunas)
Infrared Radiant Heat (IRRH) is a form of radiation that penetrates the outer surface of objects, including human skin. Heat is generated as the infrared energy interacts with and penetrates the skin surface.
The depth of penetration is estimated to be 2-3 inches. The IRRH reaction is exothermic. The release of heat, if localized, is believed to be therapeutic by some health experts.
Today, a number of businesses sell saunas equipped with infrared radiant heat (IR Saunas). They claim that at 2-3 inches deep, the release of heat is beneficial in many ways. For instance, chronic wounds tend to heal.
How? No one knows for sure, but most likely it’s related to improved blood flow and oxygenation of the wound. I have no problem with the theory behind IRRH and the healing of chronic wounds.
But what about weight loss? Can infrared heat cause significant weight loss? More importantly, can it lead to Healthy Weight Loss? The business owners selling IR Saunas seem to think so.
So the question is, can IR Saunas lead to Healthy Weight Loss?
Infrared Radiant Heat Saunas (IR Saunas)
Unlike older steel counterparts, IR Saunas are ceramic-coated and tend to be more efficient, producing the same amount of heat in a shorter time period when compared to the steel based saunas.
According to supporters of IR Saunas, this efficiency translates into longer exposure times, up-regulation of your body’s thermoregulatory system, and weight loss.
A local Dallas newspaper printed an ad for an infrared sauna that stated , “Perspiring is part of the complex thermoregulatory process of the body that increases the heart rate, cardiac output, and metabolic rate. The process requires a large amount of energy and reduces excess moisture, salt and subcutaneous fat. Fat becomes water soluble at 110 degrees (F) leading to fat loss.” — Dallas Voice, February 12th, 2005
There is no doubt that we could pick apart the ad and question it’s validity. But, I decided to keep things simple and focus on one aspect of infrared weight loss…the thermoregulatory process.
According to the advertisement, infrared heat penetrates deeply into tissue and up-regulates the thermoregulatory process. Is this up-regulation enough to cause significant healthy weight loss?
For our purposes, healthy weight loss is defined as fat loss. Remember, a healthy diet program promotes weight loss in short increments, never losing more than 2 pounds per week. The drop in weight is from a loss of fat and nothing else. Weight loss by any other means isn’t healthy and should not be considered as an option for losing weight.
The Thermoregulatory Process
This is a very complex topic. Many factors are involved in keeping your body temperature constant. In the human brain, the hypothalamus regulates the entire thermoregulatory process with the exception of early responses to high temperature. Things like sweating, rapid breathing, and increased blood flow to the arms and legs are examples of the early responses not regulated by the central nervous system.
The question is can these mechanisms cause weight loss by “burning” fat. Cedric Bryant, chief exercise physiologist for the American Council on Exercise, says no.
“The amount you sweat is indicative of your body’s ability to maintain its normal body temperature. You sweat when your body starts to store heat so you can experience cooling via evaporation of that sweat. So it doesn’t correlate to how much energy, or calories, is being expended. You are not going to utilize stored fat simply by raising body temperature…it’s not going to happen.”
It makes sense too. Your body loves to store fat for future emergencies and it won’t give up the fat very easily. You are well protected from starvation.
Joe King, editor for the Journal of Hyperplasia Research said, “Evaporation accounts for increases in total oxygen uptake, which causes the working muscles to utilize more glycogen.” Glycogen is the stored form of glucose, the main energy source for your body.
In short, IR Saunas do not cause weight loss through utilization of fat. Instead, the high temperatures result in glycolysis (using sugars for immediate energy needs) and the water loss accounts for the drop in weight. What does this all mean? Infrared Saunas promote unhealthy weight loss.
This reminds me of what a sales representative told me a month or so ago about IR Saunas. He said, “The heart receives a workout similar to a 6-mile run in an IR Sauna.” He may be right, but it’s not fat that you’re losing.
Conclusion
An infrared sauna is not a good option for losing weight.
Healthy Living!
Michael A. Smith, MD
The Weight Loss Professional
Additional information on can be found at The Weight Loss Professional Website.
Dr. Smith is the primary physician and consultant for the Weight Loss Professional Website. His interests include preventative medicine, the genetic etiology of obesity, and several other interests too numerous to list. Please visit his web site at weight-loss-professional.com and let him know what you think.
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Obesity And Fast Foods – The Lethal Link
Obesity and fast foods – there’s little doubt about the link. Obesity has reached epidemic proportions in the United states. And it’s an epidemic that has grown side by side, step by step with the the fast food industry.
Eric Schlosser in his brilliant and shocking book, Fast Food Nation, describes the US as “an empire of fat,” and he lays the blame for this clearly and convincingly at the door of the fast food industry.
Obesity Fast Food Data
Twice as many American adults are obese today as in the 1960s. More than half of all adults and a quarter of all children are now obese. Over this same period, fast food has become cheaper and easier to buy. Further evidence for the link between obesity and fast food can be found outside the US. Since the early 1980s, American-style fast food culture has spread like wildfire around the world… And obesity has followed, accompanied by its many unwelcome side effects: heart disease, diabetes, arthritis and other ills.
As people in countries like Japan and China have abandoned traditional healthy diets in favour of fast food, the rates of obesity and associated diseases have soared.
In countries which have resisted the spread of fast food culture, like France, Italy and Spain, obesity is far less of a problem. The good news is that there is now more awareness about the ill effects of fast food than ever before, thanks in part to books like Fast Food Nation and documentary movies like Morgan Spurlock’s popular and punchy Super Size Me.
There also seems to be a genuine change in people’s attituded to to food and how it is produced. As Schlosser says modestly of his book: “its success should not be attributed to my literary style, my storytelling ability, or the novelty of my arguments.
“Had the same book been published a decade ago, with the same words in the same order, it probably wouldn’t have attracted much attention. Not just in the United States, but throughout western Europe,people are beginning to question the massive, homogenizing systems that produce, distribute, and market their food. The unexpected popularity of Fast Food Nation, I believe, has a simple yet profound explanation. The times are changing.”
What can we do about fast food and obesity?
So what can we do to as consumers to tackle the problem of obesity and fast foods?
First, we can stop supporting the traditional, unhealthy fast food chains. Let’s rather buy from outlets that sell healthy alternatives. More and more of these restaurants and delis are opening. There should be at least one near you. Support it!
Another thing we can do is to lobby our congressperson (or MP or some other political representative if we’re in a country outside the US) to ban all advertisements that promote foods high in fat and sugar to children.
As Schlosser points out, prevention is far better than cure. “A ban on advertising unhealthy foods to children would discourage eating habits that are not only hard to break, but potentially life-threatening.”
Such a ban may sound far-fetched, until you remember that 35 years ago a ban on cigarette advertising sounded equally unlikely. Five years later Congress banned cigarette ads from television and radio. And those ads were directed at adults, not children.
Smoking has declined ever since.
It’s time we did something similar with obesity and fast food
Alan Cooper is a journalist with 20 year’s experience and the publisher of ObesityCures.com, a site with the ambitious aim of being a “one-stop-shop” for impartial information on obesity and weight loss solutions – including fad diets, prescription weightloss pills and herbal diet aides.
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