Question:
A few days ago on a radio show they were talking about the ALS
suffered by Gulf War vets and a form of treatment was a sauna to sweat
some of the toxins out of the body. Then I see a doctor on TV saying
that the increase in illnesses may be because we don't sweat anymore.
We air condition our houses, cars, work areas, etc. It made me think.
I haven't had a good sweat since years before I developed MS. I'm not
saying that is the cause I just wonder if I should find a steam room.
Comments?
Answer:
Comfort cooling has been around since the 30s, but only began to be
more widely used in the 50s -- and that mostly in the U.S. Sunbelt. It
didn't really catch hold in Northern climates until the 60s and 70s.
By that standard, there would have been an MS boom down South first,
when actually the closer to the equator you get, the lower the
incidence of MS.
There are other medical problems being linked to our closed indoor
environments. Asthma, for example, is at epidemic levels around the
world. It's partly attributable to poor air quality levels indoors and
outdoors, but moreso to the modern tendency to spend more time indoors
with insufficient air changes, closed windows, exposed to a condensed
mixture of allergens. I guess the overall effect of this on the immune
system of a person with a tendency toward developing MS, could push
them over the edge. Infrared sauna therapy was one of several of secondary treatments (in addition to
acupuncture, IV vitamin and mineral supplementation, sound healing) applied to restore
subjects' immune systems and facilitate detoxification. Infrared sauna therapy and
detox wraps transferred mercury, lead, and other heavy metals from of the subjects'
bodies, and in the process dramatically reduced chronic skin rashes many survivors had
been experienced for more than four years.
But the most far-reaching assertions for this technology center on detoxification.
Claims for the ability of infrared saunas to rid the body of heavy metals and the like
populate the Internet like Viagra ads. A press release for Sunlight Saunas mentions
Dietrich Klinghardt, a Seattle-area physician who asserts that infrared saunas, but not
conventional ones, rid the body of "cholesterol, fat-soluble toxins, toxic heavy
metals, sulfuric acid, sodium, ammonia and uric acid."
