The short-term increase in the blood concentration of the fire-fighting substance IL-6, the reduction in blood sugar concentration, and the lowering of blood pressure after the long-term part of the study are promising findings for the use of hot baths as an alternative to exercise. It is, however, important to realize that we still need to know a little bit more before we can advise hot baths for people who are unable to exercise. For example, the long-term part of the study consisted of a lot of hot baths in only 2 weeks' time. Most people are probably too busy with other things, like work, to take this many baths. In the future, we would like to test whether taking fewer baths per week, but over a longer duration, like several months, also improves health. Also, we have only investigated the effects of hot baths in men, and it would be interesting to find out whether baths can also improve health in women.

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Go to source: https://kids.frontiersin.org/article/10.3389/frym.2019.00098