Sauna bathes are popular practices of healthy young, adult and older people. Frequently, the sports medicine physicians are invited to evaluate the impact of the sauna on diseases and on health in general. Sauna can be beneficial or dangerous depending on its use. In the past few years the sauna is being considered beneficial for the cardiovascular diseases' patients, as the heart failure and lifestyle-related diseases, mainly by improving the peripheral endothelial function, through the increase of the cardiac output and peripheral vasodilation. The endothelial dysfunction is present in most of the cardiovascular diseases. The present article intends to review the sauna effects on the cardiovascular system in healthy individuals and in some cardiovascular diseases.
Sauna; Endothelial function; Heart failure; Systemic arterial hypertension; Thermoregulation
