Regular sauna users may have fewer chronic diseases

"Two recent experimental studies by Lee et a and Laukkanen et al in 100 men and women (56% men; age, 32-75 years) with at least 1 cardiovascular risk factor reported reductions in both systolic BP and diastolic BP after 30-minute sauna bathing sessions. In addition to reductions in BP, sauna bathing led to positive alterations in measures of arterial stiffness such as pulse wave velocity."

https://www.mayoclinicproceedings.org/article/S0025-6196(18)...

In Finland even "sick" people go to the sauna all the time. It depends on the sickness though: fever and sauna don't mix for obvious reasons. But otherwise people do it.

Looking at the list of ailments in the article, I don't see them being a showstopper for going to a sauna.

For example, regular sauna is often helpful for people with asthma. The Finnish sauna is humid (one throws water to the hot rocks). There are variants within Finland too: a smoke sauna + asthma might not work.

My point is: the argument of "sick people do not use sauna" is false.

Finnish saying: "if tar, booze or sauna does not cure you, it is fatal". (Tar was used for skin ailments and wounds etc.)

However, I can certainly imagine that a sauna gets your heart rate up and your metabolism into overdrive trying to cool you down.

The human body burns roughly a fixed set of calories--it simply shunts those calories between the systems it considers to be immediately important.

If you are shunting one or two hundred calories a day to cooling yourself off, that's a bunch of calories your body can't throw at creating chronic conditions.