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Daily hot bath improves glucose metabolism and insulin sensitivity
If you are not able to exercise a lot, you can still work on your health. Frequent exposure to heat, in the form of a hot bath, improves your glucose balance, report English researchers at Loughborough University in the Journal of Applied Physiology.
Study
The researchers had 10 fat and unfit men with a sedentary lifestyle followed by a hot bath cycle for 2 weeks. In this period, the men took a bath for one hour 10 times. The temperature of the water was 39 degrees Celsius.
A control group of 8 other fat men did not bathe.
Results
A hot bath doubled the use of oxygen, and increased the concentration of nitrite and interleukin-6 in the bloodstream. You also find these effects during physical exertion.
After the 2-week bath cure, the glucose level had decreased from 4.44 to 3.98 millimoles per liter in the morning, and the insulin level was reduced from 68.1 to 55.0 picomoles per liter.
Conclusion
"This study provides support for the use of hot water immersion to improve aspects of the inflammatory profile and enhance glucose metabolism in sedentary, overweight males, and might have implications for improving metabolic health in populations unable to meet the current physical activity recommendations", write the researchers.
"As the research on passive heating to improve cardiometabolic health is still in its infancy, this study provides strong rationale to continue the work on a treatment that may provide an alternative for people restricted from engaging in physical activity", says first author Sven Hoekstra in a press release. [lboro.ac.uk, 16 Nov 2018]
"In the future, we hope to extend this research to populations that may most benefit from passive heating interventions, such as the elderly or people with disabilities that restrict them from engaging in exercise."
Wild speculation
Unrestrained by a lot of knowledge, but inspired by human studies in which athletes take a warm bath after their training [Scand J Med Sci Sports. 2016 Jul;26(7):745-54.] or in which both fit and less fit people go to the sauna, we wonder if heat treatments can also be useful for athletes.
Athletes often have a full training schedule. More training is often not possible, because more training will irrevocably lead to overtraining. But heat treatments?
Source:
J Appl Physiol (1985). 2018 Oct 18. doi: 10.1152/japplphysiol.00407.2018. [Epub ahead of print].
More:
Human study: olive leaf supplement increases insulin sensitivity 30.04.2018
Daily portion of oyster mushrooms lowers glucose levels and improves cholesterol 25.01.2018
Strength training + active lifestyle more than halves chance of diabetes 11.09.2017
Archives:
Insulin & Glucose Metabolism
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