The American Nutrition Society published a press release a few weeks ago with surprising content. What do we learn there? That “new research in mice suggests that spending time each day in a warm environment like a sauna could help older adults, especially women, combat age-related obesity and resistance to ‘insulin.”
The results of this work were presented this summer 2024 during the Nutrition 2024 conference held in Chicago. The main author of the study, a researcher from the nutrition department of the University of Massachusetts in the United States, explained from the outset that this work targeted women who “compared to men, have a higher risk of being obese or overweight, particularly after menopause, due to the loss of estrogen”.
Encouraging responses in mice
These are therefore female mice (removed of their ovaries to closely resemble the metabolism of menopausal women) to which the scientists had to ingest a diet similar to ours (therefore rich in fat) then offered “sauna” sessions for 12 weeks.
The sauna is effective on weight and blood sugar levels (which makes it an interesting diabetes prevention option), but it also preserves cells!
The results? THE “Older female mice receiving a daily 30-minute whole-body heat treatment gained less weight and had better use of insulin, which helps control blood sugar.”
Other good news is that the mice having received the heat treatment displayed, in addition to weight reduction taken because of excess fats, “a reduction of tissue damage linked to aging.”
In other words, not only is the sauna effective on weight and blood sugar levels (which makes it an interesting way to prevent diabetes), but it also preserves cells!
All that remains is to determine the duration and frequency of sauna sessions, and we can adopt this new generation slimming diet.
