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Infrared saunas are not a coronavirus remedy, doctors warn, as sales boom

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Manufacturers say sales of infrared saunas have tripled in the past six months. "This is a dangerous lot of hot air," doctors say.

In recent years, infrared saunas have become a familiar part of the suburban landscape, along with salt rooms and float tanks. Wellness clinics say the invisible light can help with stress, weight loss, skin care, and general healthiness, while online sellers report strong demand for home set-ups.

With COVID-19, this demand has boomed. Two of the largest sellers, Clearlight and Sunlighten, say sales have tripled in six months.

Traditional saunas use heat to warm the air, which in turn warms your body, while an infrared sauna heats your body without warming the air around you. Top-end home models sell for up to $15,000 and portable ones for much less.

Online wellness gurus hype the technology's 'healing abilities', with some even saying that infrared saunas can treat COVID-19 — a claim the Australian Medical Association dismisses as "dangerous hot air" and yet another example of merchants taking advantage of people's fears as the virus rages around them.

While the sauna-makers that spoke to Hack are not claiming their product can cure COVID, they do say it can boost the immune system during the pandemic, and this perceived benefit is why they're selling more than ever.

The scientific evidence for this is very thin, and mostly based on one study, on mice.

"It's been an industry that's been growing and with COVID-19 we've seen a significant increase," said Sunlighten Marketing Director for Australia and New Zealand, Gabriella Franklin.

In March, Sunlighten posted on Facebook: "With COVID-19 at the top of everyone's mind, so is protecting yourself against it. One of the best ways to strengthen your immune system is through infrared sauna sessions due to its ability to raise the body's core temperature."

Clearlight says on its webpage, "As the coronavirus (COVID-19) situation continues to evolve, our entire team is ready and standing by to support you ... The good news is [that] a therapeutic grade infrared sauna, like ours, can help your immune system tremendously."

"Using the sauna to boost and strengthen your immune system may help reduce the chance of getting sick in the first place."

The Clearlight webpage also features a video titled 'How to Protect Yourself from Corona Virus in 2020 on a Cellular Level'.

The video, part of a series sponsored by Clearlight, features an interview with a Byron Bay wellness clinic owner who claims that charging the body's cells with specific voltages can increase immune function. The clinic operates a version of the BioCharger device chef Pete Evans promoted as a cure for coronavirus in April.

The health regulator later fined Evans $25,000 for two breaches of the Therapeutic Goods Act.

Both the Australian Medical Association and the Royal Australia College of GPs have slammed this promotion of infrared saunas in the pandemic, saying that the idea is as outlandish as Evans's BioCharger promo.

"This is a dangerous lot of hot air," said Dr Chris Moy, chair of the Australian Medical Association Ethics and Medico-Legal Committee.

RACGPs Victorian Chairman Dr Cameron Loy said drawing a link between the saunas and the pandemic was "irresponsible".

"Marketing products or services like this has the potential to lull people into a false sense of security and make them less likely to follow proven health advice such as physical distancing and hand washing."

Can saunas boost the immune system?

Clearlight and Sunlighten told Hack that infrared saunas can boost a person's immune system through creating an 'artificial fever'.

"People now more than ever are becoming conscious of hteir health and wellbeing, and are resarching how to beter look after themselves and their immune system," Clearlight CEO Sebastian Mierau told Hack.

"A small increase in core body temperature can help tackle viral infections in the body."

"As such, the impetus towards infrared sauna usage is powerful when there is a health threat globally such as COVID."

He said these benefits were based on "studies spanning decades".

In fact, this specific claim can be tracked back to a 2019 study on mice, which found that raising their body temperatures by three degrees — the equivalent of a high fever — increased the production of white blood cells to fight infections.

There have been no scientific studies on humans that show raising body temperature boosts immune response.

A 2018 Finnish study found that a 30-minute traditional sauna can reduce blood pressure in the same way as moderate exercise.

There is also limited evidence that saunas may reduce or prevent cold symptoms, improve joint pain and stiffness, and help with stress and sleep, which can indirectly improve immune-system function. The evidence they can 'detoxify' is patchy. In June, the US regulator warned an infrared sauna company against saying that it could heat the body to a temperature that destroyed coronavirus in the lungs. Claims that saunas could prevent or treat coronvairus were not based on scientific evidence, the FTC said.

Saunas are a "lazy man's exercise" that make you feel good but are not magical healing machines, said Jack Tsonis, founder of the Sauna Studies research group at Western Sydney University and president of the Australian Sweat Bathing Association, which represents Australia in the International Sauna Association.

"For general health and wellbeing, there's a lot of low-level evidence but we don't have any large-scale studies," he said.

"There's a lot of indications that sauna is good for the immune system but really there's not much in the way of robust scientific evidence."

"It can be recommended with the caveat that we don't have enough evidence."

As for drawing associations between using a sauna and staying healthy during the pandemic, Mr Tsonis said that was "irresponsible".

"One must always look into the research," he said.

A 19th century invention rediscovered in the 21st

Though infrared saunas are a recent trend, the idea goes back to 1891, when Dr. John Harvey Kellogg — that Kellogg, from the corn flakes — invented an "electric light bed" he claimed stimulated healing in the body.

He displayed his invention at the Chicago World's Fair in 1893. The idea caught on in Germany, which set up medical "Light Institutes". King Edward VII of England had light baths installed at Windsor and Buckingham palaces to treat his gout, and his nephew, Kaiser Wilhelm II of Germany, had the same in his palaces.

The idea died away and was then revived in Japan in the 1970s.

"By the time COVID came along it had reached a point where people knew about it and it's amazing health benefits," said Clearlight CEO Sebastian Mierau.

He said the pandemic had made people more health-conscious and people wanted to try new wellness technologies.

"They think, 'Surely it will help me to get through a viral infection'," he told Hack.

"Overall, I don't think you can pinpoint the benefit, but people realise this is a healthy thing to do when there is a health threat."

Sunlighten's Gabriella Franklin said customers were buying to "build" their immune systems, as well as manage the "increased stressors and demands of COVID-19."

RACGP's Dr Cameron Loy said that, since the best medical science does not yet understand the "mechanism of injury of COVID-19 in a fundamental way", it was absurd to claim that infrared light or heat may somehow help.

"I wish I could tell you that protecting yourself against COVID-19 was as simple as boosting your immune system via an 'infrared sauna session'," he said.

"It would make my job as a GP a lot easier."