How Sauna Detoxified My Body | Bryan Johnson Podcast
In this episode of the "Don't Die" podcast, host Bryan Johnson, clinician Mike, and co‑host Kate discuss a self‑experiment using a dry Finnish‑style sauna (200 °F, 20 min daily) as a longevity intervention. They outline the practical setup (temperature, timing after workouts, clothing, ice packs for head and testicles, electrolyte re‑hydration, and sweat‑rate monitoring with a Gatorade patch), safety concerns (heat tolerance, electrolyte balance, potential cramps, blood pressure effects, and contraindications such as pregnancy or uncontrolled cardiovascular disease), and the underlying biology. Mike explains how heat induces vasodilation, lowers central blood pressure, raises heart‑rate zones, activates heat‑shock proteins (HSP‑70/72), boosts growth hormone, reduces cortisol and CRP, and may improve mitochondrial biogenesis and toxin excretion via sweat. Early biomarker data after seven and eighteen sessions show a 6 % drop in central systolic pressure, 21 % reduction in central pulse pressure, and improvements in augmentation pressure, suggesting increased arterial compliance and a vascular age shift from the late‑20s to early‑20s. They also note subjective effects: initial sleep disruption, fatigue, cramps from inadequate electrolytes, and later acclimation. The conversation covers comparative modalities (exercise, hot baths, contrast showers, hyperbaric oxygen therapy) and the limits of current evidence (mostly observational). They discuss ancillary measurements (brain‑age via Kernel device, microbiome, P‑tau217, microplastics, glyphosate exposure) and plans for further testing after 40‑50 sauna sessions. Practical advice is offered for home replication, including gradual temperature ramp‑up, monitoring sweat sodium, using appropriate clothing (avoid plastics, consider nude to reduce chemical exposure), showering post‑sauna, and ensuring air‑quality of the sauna wood and water used on rocks. The episode blends personal anecdote, data‑driven analysis, and broader perspective on longevity interventions.
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When I was going through this, I was like, I'm destroyed. And I thought, is this normal? So I called Kate and I was like, kate, do you want to come over and do sauna? Because I wanted to get her experience and see, like, if she was.
She was using me as a guinea pig, essentially. Like, is this as bad for you as it is for me?
So.
And I was like, what am I looking into? I was kind of scared because. And that's the other thing I asked, but I was like, Is this safe? 200 degrees Fahrenheit is insanely hot. Like, Brian, I looked it up and what, it takes 20 minutes to cook an egg in that?
Yeah. If you put an egg in there, it's hot enough where the. The white actually solidifies.
And so I was kind of a little bit nervous.
Kate's not sweating. Sitting there completely comfortable. Brian's over here, like, sort of like shivering, sweating.
Yeah. I think I made the time go much quicker for Brian because it was like someone else there to distract him in the 20 minute sprint.
Hi, everybody. Welcome to the Don't Die podcast with Brian Johnson. Today we're talking about sauna and how all you have to do is step into this little box, get all hot and sweaty and magical things happen to your body. But there are things you want to be aware of before you start your sauna protocol. So hang out with us today. We're looking forward to it.
Brian, it looks like you're in a cave. Looks very dark over there.
It does, huh?
Yeah. This is why people think you're a vampire.
I feel like we should all be in a sauna.
Not.
Not in our regular setup.
I agree with you.
Chilling in the sauna. Or maybe that's the wrong terminology. Baking.
Yeah.
Yeah. Ought to be sweating in the sauna.
We should have set it up, you know, But I did the. So Kate did the sauna with me this week, and we were assessing her sweat capacity because I measured mine, and. And she didn't sweat at all.
And this is 200 degrees Fahrenheit, SAA. So very hot.
For how long? Like 20 minutes.
20 minutes.
You didn't sweat at all?
Yeah. And so now we wonder, is there something wrong with me, Mike?
Broken sweat glance. Yeah, there are people who don't sweat. That's the thing. I am not one of them.
Unfortunately, I did correct for this because I got into the sauna today. I had the blood draw this morning, and so I didn't get in my morning workout, but I did the sauna session. And so I Got into the sauna without having worked out and my body temperature was normal and my sweat profile was similar to what Kate had. And so it was. I think the results of the experiment were, were wrong because I had just finished with a pretty robust workout. So it was already warmed up, I was already sweating, and then I went straight into the sauna. So I don't think. Yes. So I don't think the results were as significant as we initially thought. But my results still, like, I having worked out and the sauna, I was sweating 18 ounces of fluid every. For that, for that duration of time. And then Kate. Yeah, I mean, you barely broke a sweat.
Yeah.
So what Brian's telling us is about this like this patch that you put on your arm that actually measures like the speed at which you, you sweat and then also measures the salt content of your sweat, which can be super helpful if you're, you know, you know, implementing a seven day sauna protocol out of nowhere and then all of a sudden sweating a bunch and having to replace a lot of electrolytes.
Yeah. So today we're gonna be talking about sauna top to bottom. And Brian, you've just started a new sauna protocol so we can talk about early results, maybe that you've been experiencing or how the experience has been. We're still in the midst of it, so we'll, we'll be updating everyone later on. But let's cover the li. What the literature says. Let's cover a couple of things that people need to know in terms of how to get a sauna. What optimal sauna is dry, wet, steam, sauna. So yeah, what did you guys discover when you looked at all the literature? This is something that's accessible in a lot of places. Gyms particularly have saunas. So. Yeah, what, what do we discover? Is sauna good? Mike, that's for you. Give us the rundown.
I didn't know if Brian wanted to start that one or not. Yeah, yeah, I'm on it. I, I love sauna. Sauna is like, I feel like as soon as I started working with Brian, I was like, why aren't we doing sauna? Like, it was like, just like, it's so ingrained in me at this point because the literature for sauna is pretty impeccable in terms of the impact it can have on chronic disease and on longevity. So we're talking about on average around 50 to 70% reduction in cardiovascular disease, reduction in dementia, and then about a 40% reduction in overall mortality. And these are from some really robust Studies that have mostly come out of Finland, uh, which is where sauna is very, very popular. So it makes sense that they're performing these studies. But you know, 2,000, 3,000, you know, thousands of people in these studies tracked over years really large impacts. So the, you know, for really relatively low effort, all you gotta do is go sit in a warm box for 20 minutes, you know, anywhere between four and seven times a week and get these huge impacts is pretty cool.
Yeah, that's actually true, Mike. Most things that are good for you require a lot of hard work. You, they require you to endure quite a bit of pain. And this is probably the closest one to a magic pill. Sit here, sweat and make maybe feel slightly uncomfortable. But otherwise it can be pretty soothing depending upon what temperature you're at. But you're right, I hadn't thought about that. But it's probably the easiest, one of the easier entry points for health.
It's certainly easier than going and doing like a 45 minute long VO2 workout. Right? Big, big difference.
I mean big difference.
But you did comment could be a little uncomfortable. Sauna's pretty uncomfortable when you get a 200 degrees, right? I mean like it's not, it's not a walk in the park.
Yeah, actually I, I was really surprised. 200. So I had been in a sauna, I had a sauna years ago that I occasionally did it and I believe I was at 1:30-140 Fahrenheit. And I don't recall how I arrived at that number. But yeah, when we looked at the evidence, I think it said that the, the range for the clinical benefits were between 180 degrees Fahrenheit and 212. So we chose 200. And yeah, I mean it, it is hot. In fact, when you're in the sauna if you don't do controlled breathing. So I, I do this meditative practice in the sauna and if you breathe more than a normal pace, the nose, it lights your nose on fire. Like if you just move air a little bit faster and by the end, by minute like 16, 17, you're like, can I do this? I mean it gets to be pretty tough. Yeah, I mean, so that, that was definitely the case. I'm now 18 sessions in and my body has definitely adjusted, but it took me at least two weeks, like 14 sessions to just begin to be acclimated. But yeah, it at 200 degrees is hot and especially I do it right after our workout, so I'm already really hot. So I think the combination that's why it was so difficult for my body to begin that process.
Mike, do we know how it works? Like, is this about sweating from the body or is this one other sort of mechanism going on?
I mean, so sweat is part of it. The sweat is going to play in when it comes to this idea of detoxifying your body. And the idea is basically you're sweating out some of these toxins. But the predominant mechanism that we're seeing here is actually from the heat itself. And the heat is causing different chemical changes in your body. So you're increasing nitrous, nitrous oxide production in your vessels, which is forcing your blood vessels to dilate. So you're getting like, it's almost like working out. Your blood vessels, they're, they're, they're dilating, they're contracting back. When you get out of the sauna, you're getting sort of this, this workout of your blood vessels, which helps reduce blood pressure. So over the long term, we see a reduction in blood pressure. You also see a heart rate increase. So it's like doing zone one, sometimes zone two, depending on what your tolerance is, type of activity. So it's what we call an exercise mimic. So it mimics exercise while you're sitting there just being hot. And then there's other things that are happening too. So when you, when you're sick, your body creates a fever, right? The one of the things that fever does is it activates these, these chemicals called heat shock proteins. And heat shock proteins are called the chaperones of proteins, which means they kind of usher proteins around and help them move around your body, and they also help fix any misfolding of those proteins. So when, when you're sick, you know, some of your proteins get messed up. Um, your heat shock proteins come around, they refold those proteins for you. They help them, help them work better, basically. So these heat shock proteins have lots of benefits, and sauna is a nice way to activate them without actually having to have a fever. So you go sit sauna for 20 minutes, activates all your heat shock proteins. You leave the sauna, your heat shock proteins are still elevated. So we're seeing a similar sort of like hormetic response that we saw with HBOT hyperbaric oxygen therapy, where we had this like negative insult of hyper oxygenation.
Right.
Similar sort of thing where now we remove the negative insult, but we're getting the continued benefit that it's created in the body over hours to a day after the sauna session.
Yeah, those, those heat shot pro proteins, we Were looking at measuring those. It was too hard for us to do it logistically. But some of the evidence points to heat shot. Protein 70 and 72 can experience a two to six fold increase in circulating levels within 30 to 60 minutes. And so they've got um, a pretty short half life some of these. But yeah, you, you get these really big spikes post sauna use, which makes sense when you do it repeatedly on a weekly basis.
There's also some hormone effects too. So you see growth hormone increase with sauna use, you see cortisol reduction, um, and you can see reduction inflammation. So CRP has been shown to go down with, with sauna as well. So probably not as strong as HBOT, but still a market like 30% reduction in CRP from sauna use, which is pretty cool.
So Mike, we, we did a big blood draw this morning. Do you think that after, I guess 18 sessions we would expect any changes in my, in my blood markers?
I, I, I doubt it, I doubt it. Um, because your blood markers are so like optimized already. I think if we were starting from a different position, like if we took evening Brian and put evening Brian in the sauna every evening, maybe we would see some changes. Um, but given where you're currently at right now, I think it's gonna be hard to measure anything remarkable on the actual blood test themselves. I think if we were measuring heat check proteins, we would see something, but that's too hard to do. And I do think it sounds like we're seeing something on the actual blood pressure as well. So yeah, we're seeing changes challenging to measure when it comes, or challenging to measure when it comes to like CRP or some of your hormones which are already pretty optimized.
I mean one thing I did notice is at the blood draw this morning, my, my blood flow, we, the phlebotomist used a 23 gauge needle which is smaller than the typical 21 they use for these kind of draws. And my blood just came like spurting out. And this was also true. I did another blood draw earlier this week and same thing like, I think more at a higher velocity than I think I've seen my blood come out in a long time. Do you think that has anything to do with sauna?
I don't know. I mean, it's possible. I mean we have seen some changes in your, your pul, pulse, wave velocity, your augmentation index, all those things in your, in your blood pressure. You have seen a slight drop in your blood pressure. So maybe I, I guess it's it's certainly possible. I, what I'm super interested in seeing actually is some of the toxin levels because we do know that there is an increased excretion of some of the heavy metals and then also like PFAs and some of the fat soluble toxins and sweat. So the increased sweating, you're already sweating a good bit with exercise, but more with sauna. Right. I mean you're having to, you're having to hydrate more. I know. So we would expect to see an increase excretion of, of some of those toxins.
Yeah. So I guess maybe to back up, we jumped right into the details. So, yes. Okay, everyone, we started a brand new longevity protocol. This is the, the follow up. We just completed hyperbaric oxygen therapy and we published those results and the data we got from that was it was potentially the most efficacious therapy we have ever done in terms of whole body rejuvenation, just from head to toe. There was something interesting throughout the entire body. And so we've now set our sights on sauna. And so as Mike was saying that the evidence around sauna is really good. There's been some limitations in that. Most of the evidence is observational and not interventional where you set up a clinical trial. But still it's very compelling. And so we completed a, as we do with all things, we completed a pretty robust baseline measurement. Okay. For, for baseline measurements, we did, we did a full blood panel. So that's over 100 different markers. And there's things you would expect like cholesterol, inflammation, testosterone, you know, things like that. We also did a few vascular health markers, including STMA, ADMA and F2. We also got a central blood pressure device. So this is like you're getting your blood pressure done at the doctor. They put the cuff. But this one does central blood pressure. It's looking at the following things. It's looking at central systolic blood pressure, central pulse pressure, augmentation pressure, and then something called S E V R. And so I've been doing that on a regular basis, measuring myself in the morning. And that gave us a nice baseline. Actually, we can go over those as baseline measurements. So we have here the measurement from baseline and then we have a measurement with seven sessions. And you see, for example, in central blood pressure, there was almost a 6% improvement. I started at 103 and after seven sessions was down to 97. Central pulse pressure went down from 28 to 22, a 21% improvement. And then you see the other ones, like the augmentation pressure augmentation index. Mike, what's your take on after seven sessions? Some pretty meaningful changes in vascular health.
Pretty impressive. I mean, like, this is what we've seen in a lot of the studies, although all the studies were much longer duration. You know, they were weeks to months of observational data, sometimes even years. So we saw pretty remarkable changes in blood pressure. But the, the fact that we saw this after seven sessions is like, is pretty awesome actually, because it really suggests that the, the actual, like, dose happens relatively quickly. So, you know, while it might take longer for someone who's coming from a place of hypertension to get to a place of normal blood pressure, like, the fact that there's actually a response this quickly is really encouraging for the idea of sauna being a relatively quick treatment.
For elevated blood pressures and to give context on what these things mean. For example, like when, when the central systolic blood pressure comes down from 103 to 97, you know, it means that there's 5.83% less pressure around my heart and my brain and other organs throughout my body. When my central pulse pressure drops from 28 to 22, it's a 21% increase in the flexible aorta. So it's less load of my heart. And then the augmentation pressure change from 2 to 1 indicates a decrease in arterial stiffness. So it's like increase in a aortic compliance. And so, like, these are really big numbers. I mean, like, if, if I'm a heart and I'm going about my daily activities and all of a sudden my life gets, you know, 5 to 20% better, that's a really big difference on my daily activity being a heart. So, I mean, I wonder if these will sustain or I wonder, you know, over various measurements, how much we'll see how much variance we'll see within the measurement. But yeah, pretty significant.
Yeah. I wonder if we end up just seeing consistency with it after this point. So we've seen our initial drop and now it's just a matter of continuing that dose of sauna in order to keep the blood pressure metrics about the same. Cause, I mean, really, we wouldn't expect much more improvement. There's not much more improving you can do, really, Brian? Like, you don't want your blood pressure much lower.
Right.
Like, it's already relatively ideal. So, yeah, it'd be surprised if we see much more improvement rather than just continuation.
Yeah. And also for context, my, my baseline markers on vascular health with the data, it was, I think, roughly mid to late 20s I think was the biological age estimate. Yeah, it was actually 29 years old. Was the composite score for the various vascular age. I think with this drop it's down to like early 20s as a vascular AC. Yeah, there's not much more room for me to go. You're right, I'm not coming at this from a really bad position. So.
Yeah, but there are some areas that we might see some changes like the, so in the, the basic blood panel that you did, all the markers that we normally check, your, your inflammation markers were all really low. I doubt we're going to see much change there. But one area we might see some change is around mitochondrial function. So sauna has been shown to increase mitochondrial biogenesis which increases the number of total mitochondria in each cell. So by tracking your, your mitochondria we may see some changes there. And we're doing mitochondrial tests. We're also doing moxi before and after the sauna. So we'll see if there's a change in oxygen utilization within the muscle which would speak to mitochondrial function as well. And then we're doing a tox urine tox test before and after. So we'll see if there's any changes into any of those fat soluble vitamins. That'll be interesting.
Is the toxicity report. I know when we went to India and also the LA fires we experienced some toxins that came back in your. Is this something we'd be able to test as well? Is that what that text toxin report will show us, whether or not we'll be able to get some of those toxins out of brain's body?
Yeah, we did a follow up after the India and we, we saw a drop. So we've got a baseline now pre sauna that is more a standard Brian's in LA kind of, you know, toxic profile, same foods, same air exposure and then we'll see how that changes after, after sauna.
Very interesting.
I agree the, the toxins will be interesting because we, I guess like the toxin mitigation strategy we've had so far is when the body, you know, is in a good shape with low inflammation, exercising, eating good foods. The body is optimized to remove toxins, but we've not done anything specifically. We did that therapeutic plasma exchange where we replaced all my plasma, but we didn't really see much movement on toxins for that. So this will be I think the first focused toxin removal protocol that we'll put to test.
And then what is your protocol, Brian? So you're day 18. How many days Are you gonna be doing this?
We didn't really set a specific timeframe on it. We begin traveling this coming Monday and we'll be out for basically three weeks. So this is what happened with HBOT as well is I think we had something like 40 sessions and then we traveled to India and China and then I came back and we did 20 additional sessions with two weeks off. So same here, I'll get up to 21 sessions, then we'll travel for three weeks, then I'll come back and we'll do an additional two to three weeks. Then we'll take the measurements again and we'll see where it's at. At that point we may just conclude that we've basically given this a go. We'll make, we'll do, analyze the data and then we may move on to another therapy because we like, like Mike's saying that we, we may be able to max out or at least get a trend line on the, the benefits without going much longer, maybe. Mike, what's your take? Do you think that these three weeks, three weeks break, then initial two to three weeks would give us a good assessment of this therapy?
I think so. I think it'd give us a good start. We're not looking for huge changes here. We've already seen some positive change. The data here is really good in terms of expected improvements or expected reduction in risk. Um, so I think, I think this is something we're going to want to continue doing just based on what we've seen so far. Unless we see, you know, you not tolerate it for some reason or, you know, negative changes in your blood work, which I wouldn't expect. I would expect we'd, we'd probably end up with a, like, this is a four times a week thing and we're just going to keep doing this.
Yeah, I mean, the first two weeks it really knocked me flat. I felt.
I've never seen a protocol affect you as much as the sauna did. Actually, wildly enough.
Yeah. I mean when I, I just felt exhausted and I. It was probably go. Because going from zero sauna to working out really hard and then getting in the sauna when I'm already very hot and going straight into 200 degrees Fahrenheit. And yeah, so it was, it was exhausting. And then it also disrupted my sleep. And so I didn't have good rest for two weeks because elevated my sympathetic nervous system and I got less rem, less deep. I would wake up in the middle of the night. I had my first good night's sleep. I think on day 15, but I'm now starting to normalize. But yeah, it was pretty disruptive in the very beginning. So the protocol is every day for 20 minutes. And then we've also been mindful that we've been measuring sperm health as we discussed on the previous episode. And we were curious if we were able to maintain similar levels of, of fertility health while doing the sauna because there's a possibility that the heat would diminish my fertility. And so I've, I've been using these ice packs that I have to keep the testicles cold during the sauna session. And then I also, for the first few sessions I didn't have anything on my head and my scalp got irritated, a little dry. And so now I, I put a little towel over my head and I put this, this ice pad over my head. And so I'm now icing my head and my testicles and that seems to eliminated the irritation of my scalp. And we just completed a semen sample actually.
You're icing all the, all the spheres at once. I feel, Brian, I feel kind of bad about the, I feel kind of bad about the protocol. I, I, so I'm surprised, to be honest with you. I'm surprised that this affected you so hard so much because you have not flinched at every other thing, thing we've thrown at you. Um, so I, I like normally I would ease someone into sauna, but because I've got this experience with you now and you're like, whatever, yes, I'm taking, I'm doing this. Like you're just, you're on it. Um, I didn't expect you to get, get so, so rocked by this one. So I, my apologies. I, we could have eased you into this, we could have like not done it right after exercise cuz that makes it way harder. We could have like started at 1:70 and then worked our way up to 200. We could have done three days a week and then worked up to seven.
Like, sorry man, I appreciate that, Mike. You know, like it's kind of Brian style to go. It is. I feel like I, we started doing this, this prep, the evidence is so compelling and it's such a fun game to play. I just really couldn't help myself. Like I just wanted to go. And so yeah, I appreciate the gesture also. I was kind of in it and if it required enduring some pain and discomfort, like all the better. Also.
I'm just hearing about this now. It's not like you called me and you're like, and I was like, keep pushing.
Like.
Yeah, you're just.
No, that. That's. That's true, actually. I. I really don't complain much about anything. I just kind of endure it. And I. Maybe. Maybe I should speak up. I mean, I guess, like, I didn't think this was a side effect that was necessarily worth reporting to. I thought it was just part of the adaptation period. And so. But otherwise, you know, when. When I do experience something that I think is a potential side effect, that would. It. That would change how you process information. I do try to report that back, but I just thought, like, this is just typical adaptation period.
Yeah. And I think it is. And I think if people don't want that type of adaptation period, they can just slow it, delay it by easing themselves into sauna. Because really, if you do it. If you do it slowly, like, sauna is. Is very forgiving. Like, you know, I think most people. A lot of people feel like they sleep better with sauna. So you're talking about sleeping worse. But, like, a lot of the. A lot of the clients I've worked with in the past, they actually like sauna in the evening because it helps them cool their body temperature and helps them get into sleep a little bit faster, so decreases sleep latency and pre. Improves deep sleep. So the data would actually support sauna help sleep, not sauna hurts sleep. But it's just because we're like, we've been super aggro about it that you've had this. This sleep disruption.
Yeah. And I did a talmadge ese yesterday. Talmadge started doing sauna for the first time, and he's starting at 140. I gave him the caveat that of just, hey, be mindful, like, you want to step into this. So he did 140. So I. I turned the sauna on, and when I got finished working out, I went out there and I was like, oh, damn, it's 140, not 200. You pre the temperature. I was like, I don't have enough time to wait for it to heat up to 200. So I was like, I'll just do it. And I got in at 140. And I was like, I don't feel anything. Is this thing even on? So it's pretty amazing to see how fast my body's adapted to this heat. And like, 140 wouldn't even make me flinch. I mean, I. I took 20 minutes. I don't think I even worked up a sweat for the entire time.
So infrared, you know, infrared sauna is only getting to about 140, 150.
Right.
So there's a few of them that get to 155. And the, the, you know, the, the argument from infrared sauna people is that it's getting deeper into your body. But it's hard to believe. I mean, like one, there's the research that suggests that dry hot sauna is better or is, you know, at least more supported in the research than infrared. But like, you get in a 150 degree infrared sauna and then you compare that to a 200 degree dry sauna, you can feel the difference. Like your body is uncomfortable in one and totally chilling, like nothing's happening in the other.
A lot of people are asking the difference between a dry sauna and wet. The dry sauna, this definition is it's 10 to 20% relative humidity, whereas a wet sauna, you're approaching 100% humidity. That's the primary difference. Then the finished sauna is between 176 and 212 with the 10 to 20% relative humidity. And so I think that the conclusion here was there's a lot more evidence on dry sauna than there's wet sauna. And that the dry sauna is actually probably the more robust therapy.
And then can you talk about. So, Brian, you were experiencing cramps in the middle of the night. Can you talk about your rehydration protocol?
Yeah, yeah. So the first three days, I did not replenish enough with electrolytes. So I started. We've been just. We've been making this blueprint electrolyte product. And because we like all things, we want to source our own ingredients and test them and not be subject to other people's processes. And we're trying to figure out how much I would need for sodium intake and potassium and magnesium. And so I was supplementing a few hundred milligrams of sodium. And then I think it was like 100 or 200 of potassium, 60 to 100 of magnesium somewhere on there. And I started having these intense, like the most intense cramps I've ever had in my life. I would like wake up and just have to jump out of bed because it was excruciating and walk it off. And it just happened repeatedly. And so then Mike, I've reported the side effect of Mike. And Mike was suggesting first we need to get a baseline because we need to figure out, because he was. Mike was asking me, do I, am I a salty sweater or not? And he said, you know, if you're a salty sweater, then you have, after you you work out, you have rings of sweat of salt, and I don't have that. At least I haven't noticed that. And so I was speculating that it wasn't a salty sweater, but then we, we use this patch made by Gatorade that you put on the, your inner forearm and it measures your, your actual, your sweat rate and your sodium content in your sweat. And so in a 20 minute session at 200 after I worked out, I generated 18 ounces of sweat. And then my sodium was between 29 milligrams and 36 thereabouts for every. Out, every ounce. So for a 20 minute session of sauna, I was somewhere in between 6 and 700 milligrams of sodium that my body would excrete in sweat. And so then we map that out and then we map the electrolyte intake for the right ratios of sodium, potassium and magnesium. And they've since gone away. So I, I do have, we've got back into electrolyte balance, but I, I was not balanced initially.
So to, to recap all that, it's a dry sauna, finished style, 200 degrees Fahrenheit, which is around 93 Celsius. You do 20 minutes every day. You wear an ice pack on your head and on your balls and you rehydrate with electrolytes immediately afterwards. Do you also drink beforehand? And then do you, you do morning sauna, it sounds like, and not evening because it disrupted your sleep. Yeah, but the science doesn't say that that's necessarily true for everyone. So. And then are you drinking beforehand water?
Yes, I drink a total of 36 and like, I guess 40 ounces, 20 before and 20 after. So I do electrolytes, half of the electrolytes before and half after.
And Mike, is that a protocol that someone at home could replicate for themselves?
Totally, yeah. It's relatively easy. I think you might want to play around with the salt a little bit or do one of those salt measuring stickers from, from Gatorade. But you know, somewhere around 500 milligrams of salt is probably reasonable for most people. Um, you definitely want to be on the upper end of water. You know, around 36 ounces is reasonable. If you're doing 20 minutes at 200 degrees and you're a heavy sweater. Sounds like Kate, you need one ounce of water afterwards somehow. I, I don't know, maybe no salt, negative salt. Um, but like, the idea is there's a, there's a linear relationship between dose and effect here. So the, the more dose you get, the Greater the effect, at least for outcome data for cardiovascular disease, for dementia, for mortality, all of those things. So one sauna session a week is good. Seven sauna sessions a week is better. Right? So it really. It truly is. The more. The more, the better. In. In this case, at least that's what the data. That's what the data suggests. Um, there are. There are people who should probably be careful in sauna. So, like, you're not asking this, but I'm going to say it anyway, Kate. Like, uh, pregnancy, you should not really be going in a sauna, just like you shouldn't be going in a hot tub. Um, people with unmanaged cardiovascular disease should not be going in a sauna without talking to their clinician. Uh, people who have difficulty with electrolyte shifts. There are people, like, with pot syndrome or other issues where they have difficulty with electrolyte shifts. Get dizzy. Um, those people need to be very careful because, like, you are. You're pushing a lot of your blood from your central circulation into your tissues as your body tries to cool down. And that can cause dizziness and lightheadedness. So be careful the first few times you get in it. Don't do, like, Brian, don't start off at 200 degrees seven days a week for 20 minutes and push through all the pain. Like, ease into it, see how you feel. But this is certainly something that I think everyone can get, and there's even ways to get a similar benefit without saunas. So if you're like, a warm bath, you know, taking a warm bath, going for exercise, similar sorts of mechanisms happen in the body.
When I was going to this, I was like, I'm destroyed. And I thought, is this normal? So I called Kate and I was like, kate, do you want to come over to sauna? Because I wanted to get her experience and see, like, if she was using.
Me as a guinea pig, essentially. Like, is this as bad for you as it is for me?
So.
And I was like, what am I looking into? I was kind of scared because. And that's the other thing I asked when I was like, Is this safe? 200 degrees Fahrenheit is insanely hot. Like, Brian, I looked it up, and what, it takes 20 minutes. Cook an egg in that?
Yeah, if you put an egg in there, it's. It's hot enough where the. The white actually solidifies.
And so I was kind of a little bit nervous, but it totally worked out totally fine for me. It was so comfortable, and I. I love the heat. It was just like a being in the sun, it was so nice, so soothing.
Kate's not sweating, sitting there, completely comfortable. Brian's over here, like, sort of like shivering, sweating.
Yeah. I think I made the time go much quicker for Brian because it was like someone else there to distract him in the 20 minute sprint.
Yeah. I mean, Kate, you also had a really significant HRV bounce.
That's true. Yeah. And that's something I've seen throughout my life. Whenever I do a sauna, my HRV will spike the next day. So I do want to. I've had trouble keeping a steady hrv. I typically see very large fluctuations, usually correlated with my menstrual cycle. So I want to do a protocol and see can I stabilize that. Those dips I usually experience in my luteal phase with sauna, I think that'd be really, really interesting.
Yeah, that's cool. That's a cool idea. I mean, it certainly can help with. It should help with HRV because it does have sort of a parasympathetic activation. So it would make sense that your HRV would go up a little bit.
I mean, Mike, the sauna does seem to address something that we've maxed out. I think nutrition, I think we've maxed out supplementation, also exercise. But, you know, sauna seems to fit a piece of the puzzle that we haven't been able to solve on vascular health. Are there other things that would be competitive with sauna that. So if we didn't do sauna, we wanted a similar vascular improvement. What therapies would we look at? Or does sauna hold a pretty unique position in terms of its ability to generate these heat shot proteins to work the endothelial function, increase blood by 70%.
Your best bet outside of sauna, like say for example, you are someone listening and you don't have access to a sauna, you don't have a gym where you get to a sauna. Your best bet is, is exercise. So in terms of like activating heat shock proteins, increasing core body temperature, like increasing bdnf, a lot of, like really almost every single one of those list of mechanisms that we went through that sauna is activating exercise also does. So in your case, we've already optimized those things from an exercise standpoint. Now we're hitting them also from a sauna standpoint. So we're heating up, hitting them with heat as well. Um, but you get a lot of that benefit from exercise. Exercise is your next next best thing. And to be honest, I think, like, if you were to pick one thing and you had to pick it. I would pick exercise over sauna, but in a setting where you know you want the benefits of sauna and you can't sauna exercise is next best. The studies on, on like hot baths on, you know, hot tubs, if you have access to that or just drawing a hot bath at your home, are actually decent. Like there's some, they suggest that there's a similar sort of mechanism and some degree of benefit that is somewhat similar to asana, although it's not as well studied. But theoretically you're getting a very similar sort of situation where hot temperature, in this case it's you know, a convective rather than conductive heat loss but like you know, increasing the body temperature of it rather quickly causing all that heat, probably getting heat shock, protein activation. So that's another, another good benefit. You could also do like contrast showers. There's been some interesting research on contrast showers going hot and cold, hot, cold. Um, and that might have some similar sort of like vascular exercise kind of effects. Um, so there's some options out there for people that don't have access to asana.
Yeah, I mean so far I'm, I'm with the early data we have, I'm impressed because I work out seven days a week. I, I mean I work out really hard and so I'm, I'm just impressed that the sauna could further boost gains even though they, they have, you know, similar mechanism of action. So yeah, excited to see what ultimately happens after. I guess it would be, let's see, around 40, 40 to 50 sessions total once we get, once we complete with this. And I definitely do enjoy it though.
Similar to hbot, right? Like same, same amount of, basically about same amount of dose. Right. Like we're right at 60 sessions with HBOT before we, before we retest it.
I also wonder if, if we're going to find anything unique in the data because with hbot, you know, I, I hadn't heard anybody talk about the microbiome as it relates to hbot. And to see the dramatic changes we had with the short chain fatty acids with Akkermansia with in butyrate with the vitamin D changes I had like where a 238% increase in vitamin D with the same level of supplementation, that was kind of a surprise to me. I mean maybe there's literature out there that I'm not aware of. But I wonder given that we're measuring so many things on sauna, if we're going to find any unexpected thing including for Example in the microbiome or in P tau, you know the marker that was recently approved for Alzheimer's.
Yep. Again, like your metrics are good so it's hard to see those change. Hard to see those changes. But we should check P tau at the end we should do another microbiome test. But honestly, like your microbiome is now so good from HBOT that it's going to be hard to identify much change. Um, so yeah, we, we are running up against the same issue, which is a good problem to have, I think.
Yeah, the, the P tau comment. This is P Tau217. This was recently approved by the FDA as the first marker for Alzheimer's and HBOT lowered that marker in me by 28%. And so we need to I think do a bit of follow up and see what the variance of that marker measurement is. But still like it's such a massive drop. And that's again something I had never thought about HBOT relating to cognitive decline and specifically to lessen its risks in a healthy person. I've heard of people doing it when they're actively engaged in that. But again, I guess these are all to me really delicious findings on unexpected things where you hear of a certain therapy supposed to be for a certain thing, but then there's this long tail of benefits which are really actually important, but they just haven't risen to the headline news of what the therapy is targeted for.
We could also see changes in brain function with all the increased BDNF from the sauna. So doing another kernel test Post Sauna Post 50, 60 sessions is probably worth it too.
Yeah, that's true. Yeah. I've got the kernel device here right next to me. I'm, I'm going to start doing daily measurements.
I'm doing. This tells you, this tells you a brain age. Is that right, Brian? Kernel?
Yes, that's right. Yeah. This is using basically like a blood oxygenation device for the brain and so it uses that as a proxy for neurons firing. And yeah, so right now it gives you a brain age number. But then we're now developing this larger panel of biomarkers of the brain on processing speed, memory, language. So we'll have this big dashboard of markers of how healthy is your brain.
Which is wild because measurement for the brain is so currently inaccessible. And this is a helmet that you can put on your head. So, so exciting. I can't wait to see that data. Mike, do you have an opinion, and maybe you don't have an answer for this, on whether or not Brian should be nude in the sauna, AKA not with potential polyester clothing. That kind of stuff as it's heating up.
Yeah, I would avoid, I'd avoid plastics for sure. I think that wool is probably fine. Wool or cotton would be, Would be okay. But I mean, it's in your, it's in your backyard. Just, just go, go solo, no harm.
I mean, we, we. So we actually were testing quite a few things for glyphosate. And for example, one of the lab results came back showing that a diaper we tested had. Oh, I forget the data. Anyways, it came back with a very large number that was kind of alarming. Which makes sense. Like the material going into a diaper would have glyphosate as an input, like, you know, in cr. In the, in the agricultural process. And so the fact that it was by any kind of detection, because people wouldn't think it as food for consumption, it's on the body, but still. And I don't think there's good evidence on what the skin absorbs of glyphosate. And so I think there's like a few jumps you have to assess and see is it a risk, if so, what kind?
So is glyphosate a pesticide?
Yeah, it's a broad spectrum herbicide. And so, yeah, it could be used in the process of growing soybeans, corn, canola, cotton. And so that's why when Kate and I were in the sauna, I had shorts on. So basically I had shorts on and underwear. Both are cotton, but I needed them to ice the balls. And Kate was like, maybe you should be nude. Because, like, we're learning from our tests that we're detecting glyphosate in foods and in diapers and in. So there's no reason to believe that your cotton clothing is free from glyphosate. And the increased heat plus the, you know, being up against your body, like you may be unexpectedly be dosing yourself with glyphosate. So it was a good point.
A lot of these chemicals are fat soluble. So like, you know, the water from your sweat plus the oils from your skin are sometimes enough to help that translocation of the chemical into. Into your body. So we, whenever we implement heat into the situation, we always worry more about like this chemical reactivity and its ability to transfer through the skin. So, yeah, I agree with you, Kate. I think, like, the less the better. For sure.
Yeah. And I remember it was. We were pretty specific about finding a sauna that was safe to use. Right. Like we were looking at air quality within saunas. A lot of saunas use, you know, crappy woods or bad glues. And then that gets heated up and you're in. You're smelling, breathing in those. Those fumes. Did we test this one for air quality, the one that you're using, Brian?
We did, yeah. I'd like to test it again. We tested it before it arrived. I would like to complete a second test.
Yeah, I've retested. I've tested the one in my house. It's been okay as well, which I think is encouraging for, like, over time. They still are. So I worry most. There's mostly about, like, plastics for manufacturing, like, burning up at the heater or something. But one thing I do want to point out that that kind of freaks me out, that I haven't seen much literature on, is the idea of putting water on these rocks. So you'll go to a lot of saunas where people actually pour water onto the rocks and it's like, you know, obviously boiling and then the steam is going up into the air. Yeah. So, like, I think, are we being mindful of what kind of water we're putting on those rocks? Like, is it straight tap water? Is it, you know, distilled water? Is it coming from a reverse osmosis filter? Like, what's in that water? We already know there's PFAs in, like, every water system in. In. In the world. So, you know, like, it's kind of. Kind of freaky. Like, it's. So for me, no water for me on the rocks.
Straight, dry. Yeah, Mike, that's a great point. Yeah, that's something that would pass most people's filter as not something to think about. But you are correct that based upon all the water we've tested, we know there are baseline contaminants in tap water in most city systems. Like, they do, of course, have their own levels, but these reverse osmosis systems are much better. We actually need to publish that we have a diff to show what the system did. But yeah, it's also worth noting that in talking to several companies that provide saunas, we asked them to do a air quality test and they refused. So maybe just they didn't want to put forward the effort. But it's just something to be mindful of as you think about a sauna system, of what are the contaminants of the sauna in the air, the water. So, yeah, good point.
And is there any kind of protocol, Mike, for what to do with your sweat afterwards? Like, should you be showering immediately afterwards? Does it matter? Can that get reabsorbed back into your skin?
I mean, I would shower immediately afterwards, I guess for multiple reasons. One, you don't stink, so you gotta start your day. Yeah, like, so there are, there's metals, there's, there's plastic, chemicals, there's, you know, pfas. All these things have been shown to be in your, in your sweat, like to the order of like, you know, 10 to 20 times the concentration that it's in your urine. So there's, there's junk on you. After you, after you shower, you should, or after you sauna, you should go shower and get that, get that stuff.
Off so that it doesn't get reabsorbed in the sauna. I. What do you think about this? So I have a talon there where I wipe the sweat off me at some kind of regular basis with the idea that if you don't, it reabsorbs. Is. Is that possible?
That's a good question. I don't think you would be. I think you're producing so much sweat at that point that you're just like. It's only. It's mostly just going one direction. It's one directional. So it's an interesting theory. I'm not sure that it's as important as just like getting, getting in the shower after the sauna, but I can't refute it by, in any way.
And by the way, if, if any of you, any of you out there know of a company that can test my sweat for toxins, we have been trying to find somebody that can do that because we, we want to like all things. We'd like to see if we can not just look at it from a before and after blood toxin level, but also just on a daily basis. What if any toxins are excreted in a daily session?
Maybe we, maybe you could just sweat into a tube and we can send it into the company as urine and they won't notice.
Yeah, agreed.
Honestly, that's a really good idea. I mean, I definitely. I mean, it's 18 ounces, right? So in any given session, it is basically the same volume as a urine sample.
I mean, having sat next to you, like, I could definitely just put a, put a tube next to your arm.
And it would just.
Yeah, it was a lot of sweat.
Yeah.
I mean, I guess I sell it on ebay.
You know, what a good insight. Because I wonder what the minimum volume sample size requirement is for a urine toxin test. Yeah, they give you. I don't Know what volume is, those little containers, but it's probably something like 4 or 5 ounces.
If they're. If they're checking for, like, your creatinine in the sample, though, you'd probably fail it because it's not. Unless you've mixed it with some urine. We did some calculations or something.
They. They would. Yeah, they would, like, immediately email us, be like friends. This.
This isn't pee.
Something's wrong.
Yeah, some. Yeah. Either you have to go to the ER immediately or you've given us a sample that is not urine.
Yeah. We should reach out to them and see. Maybe they'd be down to do this experiment.
Yeah, I. So let's get it. Let's. Let's try it. We'll see what the minimum sample volume is, and then we'll see if we can collect that amount. I mean, it's going to be hard because the 18 ounces of. Is spread throughout my entire body, and so I have to find a way to collect that in. I mean, you're also getting a lot of skin cells, too, so. Anyway. Okay.
And are we doing a microplastics test? I know we're doing Pfaff specifically, but are we doing microplastics in the blow?
Yes, we're doing.
Yeah, yeah.
We have been doing it routinely. We have some good microplastic data recently on. Yep. On several things.
Next episode from live from the sauna.
That one was hot, steamy.
Mike, do you. Do you have access to a sauna? Do you have one at your home?
Yeah, yeah, I've got one in the garage.
Do you. Is it. What temperature do you do it at?
Depends on, like, how soon I remember to turn it on, but anywhere from, like 170 to. I've seen it. 212 is the highest I've seen it. At that point, your eyes feel like they're melting. I think maybe there's, like, diminishing returns at that point. Yeah, it's usually around, like, I'm usually around 180, 190.
Yeah. And how often do you do it?
Uh, I would say on average, I get in there like two to three times a week. I would like to do it more. I would like to do it four plus. Like, the data really shows, like, four is where you're getting, like, really good impact.
Yeah.
So I. That's where I'd like to be.
Yeah. Kate, do you have sauna as part of your daily life protocol?
I don't have sauna as part of my daily life protocol. I have space on my Roof. I could get a sauna. May I wait for your results? Yeah, works on it. That sounds pretty good.
Are you not persuaded by the evidence we presented today and the initial results?
I'm all in just for the experience of it, like the feeling of being in the sauna. But I would love to also see.
All your results just because you love the heat.
Love the heat, yes. The heat is my friend.
I mean you grew up in Australia and you basically was in a sauna. Yeah.
Right, the atmosphere.
Yeah. And you were, you were in the sun constantly. Right. That was your.
Yeah, lots of UV damage. I went back home recently and it was like 13 UV, which is just wild. I think the top of the range is 15. And that was just an everyday kind of situation growing up, so.
And did the people you saw, did your friends, did they have a similar sun kind of a routine style? They this just spend time in the sun without thinking twice about it?
Yeah. I mean you met my sister, she came over to Brian's house last week and we all hung out and we did our usual routine, which is we show people what their skin age is using the multispectral imaging. And she came back with pretty significant UV damage, which correlates with the experience that we had both growing up where we would go lay in the sun in midday and try and get a tan. So yeah, it definitely wasn't a good situation. But unlike me, I've kind of gone down this path of now avoiding the sun. She still seeks the sun every day and so it's really interesting to see the difference in our daytime.
Yeah. Mike, have you done this, the skin age test?
I have, yeah. I didn't do great. I didn't do great.
Did you spend a lot of time?
So I, it wasn't terrible. I, I like, I hit my age perfectly except for the left side from driving was two years higher than the right side. Um, so from driving a car, like sun, sun exposure to the car and then. But I hit my age perfectly, which is very different than all, all my other aging tests are generally like seven, eight years lower. So. But for skin, I'm like right at my age, which is unfortunate.
You know, I, I can't get my daughter to embrace the.
The nurse on life. The vampire life.
Well, it's not, it's not even the vampire life. It's obviously just a. Something much smaller, softer. It's just to acknowledge that there's a trade off in the sun, that yes, it feels great. And yes, there's a cultural pressure in America to be you know, to be tan for in her social world. Also, it comes at a cost later in life. And of course, when you're in your teens, the last thing that you think is ever going to happen is you're not going to be in your teens. You think that your entire life you're going to be a teenager. And then, of course, when your 20s and 30s come, it's like, oh, actually, something happens after teenage life. And so I just. I have. She. She messaged me the day. She's like, dad, you're going to be really proud of me. I went out in the sun for three hours. I had sunscreen on. And I was like, genevieve, you're right. Like, I'm really proud of you. Great job. And then she said, but the other day, I also spent two hours in the sun. I didn't have sunscreen on. And I also felt fine about that. She's like, dad, I. I don't see the difference. Like, I don't know if what you're saying is accurate. So it's. It's a battle I'm waging. I'm not quite sure how I'm doing. I think I'm losing.
How old is she?
Well, 15. Okay, so you're just.
You're planting. You're planting seeds that will later blossom, hopefully in her early 20s when her frontal lobe develops.
Well, she. She was like, dad, I'm. I'm just gonna. Well, I. I won't say what she said, but, like, she had in her mind that there was, like, something that adults do to address that. I'm like, that. That actually doesn't address the problem. Like, it's gonna cause your skin to just cut.
What you have to tell us because now it's like this mystery. Like.
Well, I just. I mean, I'm just imagining her, like, somehow finding out that I talked about her on a podcast. And she's like, dad, you can't say that stuff. And so I was, like, trying to put it out. So without violating her trust, she was imagining something that adults do for their skin. She's like, I'll just do that as if it's a cure. I was like, actually, it doesn't solve that problem. When your skin sags and wrinkles and discolors, it's complicated. You have to do a whole bunch of stuff. And even those things don't really work. And she's like, they don't get brand new skin. And I was like, I don't know. I don't know if you can do that yet. I mean, like, maybe in 10 years, but, like, so that was a hard one. I was like, kind of like. It's a good point. Like, maybe you're right. Maybe you're right.
Yeah.
Possible.
Yeah. It's also interesting last night is that it's so hard to walk this fine line of worrying about aging versus wanting to be your optimal, healthy self.
Yeah.
I think that's the thing is, like, we don't want to scare her into worrying about sagging skin, because that's ultimately not the problem, really. It's really about just being able to feel and act your healthiest and best.
So. Yeah. I mean, the thing is, though, like, so I agree with you. And what creates that tension is when society has a norm that to behave a certain way is accepted and desirable, then if you don't behave that way, then you're weird and you're missing out. But if the default were actually positive, then we wouldn't have this tension. And so there is definitely an appropriate place for sun in life. And it's just not too much, not too little, but a nice balance. I feel like Asia has done a much better job finding that balance where America is, like, leather skin, you know, like, more towards that side of the spectrum. And so I think just. We were just off on the default of where the appropriate balance is for these various things. And that creates the tension that most people then say, do I live life or do I do this other thing? And they create this binary dichotomy in their mind, which isn't the proper representation of the consideration set. For those of you listening, I want to remind you I'm doing this not because I think this stuff is going to help me live forever. I'm doing this stuff because I think this is the move as a species that if we care about the human race, our individual selves, and the human race existing, I think we need to turn away from death in all of its forms, and we can find new ways of meeting. So it really is like, it's. Yes, there's, like, a practical, social, societal how I live my day life on a daily basis also, it's in this larger context. And so I just didn't want people to walk away thinking that if I'm feeling burdened with this tension of, like, what do I do daily? And then how do I think about this larger perspective? It's just the Don't Die podcast. So cool.
All right, thanks, you guys. Okay, see you next week.
