Hindawi Evidence-Based Complementary and Alternative Medicine Volume 2018, Article ID 1857413, 30 pages https://doi.org/10.1155/2018/1857413 Review Article Clinical Effects of Regular Dry Sauna Bathing: A Systematic Review Joy Hussain and Marc Cohen School of Health and Biomedical Sciences, RMIT University, Melbourne, VIC, Australia Correspondence should be addressed to Joy Hussain;
[email protected] Received 9 October 2017; Revised 14 December 2017; Accepted 8 January 2018; Published 24 April 2018 Academic Editor: Kieran Cooley Copyright © 2018 Joy Hussain and Marc Cohen. Tis is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. Introduction. Many health benefts are claimed by individuals and facilities promoting sauna bathing; however the medical evidence to support these claims is not well established. Tis paper aims to systematically review recent research on the efects of repeated dry sauna interventions on human health. Methods. A systematic search was made of medical databases for studies reporting on the health efects of regular dry sauna bathing on humans from 2000 onwards. Risk of bias was assessed according to the Cochrane Collaboration guidelines. Results. Forty clinical studies involving a total of 3855 participants met the inclusion criteria. Only 13 studies were randomized controlled trials and most studies were small (� < 40). Reported outcome measures were heterogeneous with most studies reporting benefcial health efects. Only one small study (� = 10) reported an adverse health outcome of disrupted male spermatogenesis, demonstrated to be reversible when ceasing sauna activity. Conclusions. Regular dry sauna bathing has potential health benefts.