Are there health benefits to sweating (from temperature not exercise)?

Sweating is a process for cooling, not for excretion.  If sweating were a process to excrete toxins and waste products, then we would sweat according to our need to excrete such substances, rather than according to our need for cooling.

In sweating, we lose water, and we lose certain vital minerals.  If these are not promptly replaced, then the effect is quite deleterious to our health.

There are weight-loss programs that are based on sweating, and on the use of diuretics, which often appear to produce dramatic effects.  These effects are illusionary; the lost weight and volume is almost entirely in water, leaving the person dehydrated.  When the person drinks enough water to be once again properly hydrated, all of the lost weight returns.

The other answer previously posted to this question is from a person who has bought into all manner of bizarre conspiracy theories, disproven quackery, and other junk science.  He is convinced that all legitimate scientists and medical professionals are in a massive conspiracy with the pharmaceutical industries, the chemical industries, the FDA, and who–knows–who–else; and that I, any sources that I might cite, and in fact any source that disagrees with these bizarre theories are part of this conpiracy.

I am not in any conspiracy, and I am not being paid by the medical profession, by the chemical or pharmaceutical industries, by the FDA, nor by any other members of Thommy's imagined conspiracy, to discredit Thommy.  I am merely someone who is well-versed in scientific principles, who does not like seeing anti-scientific nonsense being passed off as truth, especially where it stands to impact the health and well-being of others.  At best, Thommy's advice will lead people to waste money and resources on disproven frauds that will gain them nothing; in many cases, Thommy's advice may well lead people with serious life-threatening conditions to reject legitimate treatments that may save their lives, in favor of fraudulent quackery that will only drain their wallets.
 
 
BTW, Thommy's bizarre rants and conspiracy theories notwithstanding, Teflon is biologically inert.  If you were to eat a nice big serving of finely-shredded Teflon, it would pass through your digestive system unchanged, and unabsorbed.  No trace of it would pass into your bloodstream nor into any other part of your body.  Not until it is heated to well above normal cooking temperatures does it begin to break down into chemicals that can be biologically-absorbed.  There have been some random claims of harm caused by fumes from overheated Teflon-coated cooking vessels, but there is a severe shortage of any credible scientific evidence to support these claims.

FYI IN Guyton's Textbook of Medical Physiology we find that producing one gram of sweat requires 0.568 kcal. the Journal of American Medical Association[JAMA] states; "A moderately conditioned person can easily sweat off 500 grams in a sauna, consuming nearly 300kcal, which is equivaent to running 2-3 miles. A heat conditioned person can easily sweat off 600-800kcal with no sdverse effects. While the weight of the water loss can be regained by drinking water the calories consumed will not be." Medical researcherss confirm that the use of a sauna provides cardiovascular conditioning as the body works to cool itself and involves substantial increases in heart rate, cardiac output and metabolic rate, referred to as passive cardiac conditioning.Among other benefits P.S> I don't sell saunas!-

Bob is so wrong i felt sorry for him.The skin is the bodies 3rd kidney.. people who have had kidney failure could if they wanted to.. lose the waste and fluid builup through sweating alone (allthough this would be a tricky way to do it,it could be used in an emergency).Do the research before you post crap and missinform other people. I smoke and drink allot of caffeine.. an i also take meds.. my body doesn't like my habits much.. so i have a really hot bath a couple of times a week to sweat out the toxins i have ingested.. I feel amazing the next day when i wake up.

Sweating, from heat as in a sauna, is different from sweating from exercising. the difference being, sauna sweat does not involve movement. sitting there, like a soaked sponge, moves no body parts. on the other hand, sweating from exercising involves body movement, which excretes sweat from places that non-movement cannot. being dehydrated, from both is identical. sweating, in any event, is good for the body. just have your replacement bottle of water.......ready.

Absolutely. It is an excellent way to expel toxins from the body and probably the most effective. In fact, a good sweat program combined with some other healthy actions could save a life or prevent a lot of unhealthy misery for a person. I personally have done several intensive sweat programs and have witnessed the successes of others doing these. Pretty amazing results.

This can be a start on a road out for many people.

Bob, your comment is probably the most evil yet. I have no concern about my "ratings". I relay what I have discovered through personal experience, close study and investigation. I make it a point to find out first hand and observe. I don't rely on just a person's credentials or position of authority...I find out, I look, I try it for myself.

Bob, you recite glib PR propaganda supported by links connected to vested interest groups (such as the psychiatrist who is paid by drug companies to influence the FDA and discredit valid natural and healthy approaches). Bob, you are "glib": glib, slick, smooth-tongued. These adjectives mean being, marked by, or engaging in ready but often insincere or superficial discourse: a glib denial; a slick commercial; a smooth-tongued hypocrite.

Bob, this kind of comment from you can only hurt a person's health and vitality...and could very well lead to someone's death if they were swayed by your cynical and mentally unsound vendetta to discredit natural ways to take care of the body. I know you are sick physically and take all kinds of medication. You are sick mentally on trying to destroy simple remedies for improving conditions. Sweat does not hurt anyone...it is natural and healthy.

Again, I want to say: the amount of absorbed toxins and their role in inhibiting the body functions can be dramatic, yet it is not generally confronted by the broad public. -[Just one anecdote: Chemicals from teflon can now be found in the systems of most every American. Dupont had a less toxic residue type teflon formula since 1996, but intentionally did not put it on the market. In fact, in 1984 ( 20 years ago) Dupont secretly tested drinking water in towns near their teflon plant and found that they were poisoning the town by dumping thousands of pounds of waste into the river. This information is from their own internal memos which went on to say the inference that "the liability is already there, so what the hell !" ...and then they actually almost tripled the amount of waste over the following years. The horror stories and crimes of Dow and Dupont and Monsanto and Eli Lilly and Scotts and others go on and on.] - Anyway, these toxins within the body can cause a variety of different symptoms, one of which is allergies. [The symptoms caused by toxins go on for pages and pages, and include headaches, easily catching colds and the flu and other common bugs, fatigue, nausea and gastrointestional difficulties, endocrine and hormone problems (problems with conception and sperm counts are among the many), liver or kidney or other organ problems, muscular or heart difficulties, nervousness, memory loss, irritability, depression, misemotional responses, dispersal of attention, eye problems, the whole array of breathing difficulties, etc., and of course, the predisposition to most cancers.] The remedy is to remove the source of the toxic exposure and/or remove the toxins which have accumulated within the body. Often a person is relieved of allergy symptoms, just from removing toxins which have been held in the body.

You, yourself, can research and investigate and directly observe to find out what is true for you. A main point that I always try to make is that biological systems are not made for processing artificial chemicals...it throws out the natural healthy balance of a biological system. Many companies and their financed research would have you believe otherwise.

Many, many ailments and illnesses and cancers are a result of being affected by toxins. Even aspects of a person's behavior and disposition can be adversely affected because of chemical residues in the body. More on this later.

Exercise in conjunction with a good sweat program will help circulate the system and eliminate toxins. There probably is no better natural alternative to eliminate the cumulative buildup of toxic residues in the system. There are herbs which assist in eliminating toxins. Good nutrition is very important in not only helping to replace body cells during a sweat program, but aspects of many healthy foods (such as green leafy vegetables) also assist with eliminating harmful chemical residues.

There are some great sweat programs out there...and one program even helps to eliminate radiation buildup. Radiation also accumulates in the body, and it can alter the characteristics of chemicals in the body and "activate" toxins. There is a Purification Program out there to help a person rid himself of the accumulated radiation using the B vitamin Niacin to flush out the radiation. Pretty amazing...I have seen people turn on sunburns from 20 years prior showing their tan lines at that time. These programs are monitored with proper proportions of balancing vitamins and regimens. Niacin can restimulate cancer if just done briefly with an inappropriate follow-thru. These sweat programs can dramatically change how a person feels physically and mentally. You will pickup other related data on some of my other posts.

People commonly underestimate the toxic chemical influence, or how many pharmaceutical drugs accumulate and throw off the body's system. Psych drugs are some of the worst culprits.

See the report on cancer by the nobel prize scientists.

Of course, toxins are not healthy for a body, and any scientist or person with common sense will tell you that chemicals not made for the body are unhealthy for the body. This easily can affect the body's natural system. It also can affect a person's general disposition and personality because of the "drug" affects altering the body's system.

This is a cool report and you can click on a person's picture to find out how an average person or a high profile professional has been accumulating some chemicals...there are more than what was found. "In a study led by Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York, in collaboration with the Environmental Working Group and Commonweal, researchers at two major laboratories found an average of 91 industrial compounds, pollutants, and other chemicals in the blood and urine of nine volunteers, with a total of 167 chemicals found in the group. Like most of us, the people tested do not work with chemicals on the job and do not live near an industrial facility.

Scientists refer to this contamination as a person’s body burden. Of the 167 chemicals found, 76 cause cancer in humans or animals, 94 are toxic to the brain and nervous system, and 79 cause birth defects or abnormal development. The dangers of exposure to these chemicals in combination has never been studied." http://www.ewg.org/reports/bodyburden/es.php

Toxic chemicals can cause all kinds of conditions and bring on a full variety of ailments, even leading towards cancers. Generally, people tend to underestimate the amount of toxic chemical infiltration that occurs to a body and the devastation which occurs over time. It happens on such a slow gradient, with different ailments or allergies or illnesses cropping up from time to time, until eventually there are vital function breakdowns with the body's system. The body eventually can no longer cope with all the internal pollution. Chemical toxins tend to accumulate within the body; they can "circulate" around the body and can even cause a mental restimulation of bad experiences. One example is that you may notice that someone who has been taking a certain drug (it could be over-the-counter) is more easily agitated or perhaps more anxious during the days following the pill popping. It might be hard to observe unless you are actually watching for this behavior change.

Sweat is a road leading out.

“Give me a fever and I can Cure any disease”

Hippocrates


I encourage people to do their own research and actually try some kind of program. Don't take my word for it. But do some investigation and find out some facts about sweating and replacing minerals, etc.

Google search sauna or infrared sauna and you will find some neat information.

There is also a lot of information out there on how drug companies and psychiatrists mislead the broad public and how they influence the FDA and other government entities. The drug and chemical industries employ over 1,200 full-time lobbyists, including 40 former members of Congress. The drug and chemical corporate lobbyists are extremely successful at what they do, which puts the FDA at the mercy of the very same chemical industry that they aim to regulate. Sen. Christopher Dodd and Senate Finance Committee Chairman Charles E. Grassley can tell you some nightmare stories. The attrocities and knowing poisoning and harmful effects of some of their drugs by companies such as Merck and Eli Lilly and Wyeth and others go on for pages and pages. The best remedy for eliminating some of these harmful chemical accumulations is a good sweat program.

Sweating does in fact excrete toxins from our bodies. Its primary function, however, is to cool the body. Doctors and scientists like to claim they are experts in the field of exercise and nutrition when they are just as unhealthy as the general population. Let's not forget that you people (doctors) have very little training in nutrition in medical school, but there's always time to see the representatives from the pharmaceutical companies. Then there's the huge budgets specifically set in place for physicians' incentives to prescribe, but I digress.

Let's get back to basics:

Eat whole, fresh foods that actually grow from the earth - not from a box. Some meat, mostly plants.

Be active.

Drink lots of water.

If you can do these things, you are on your way to being much more healthy. While I respect doctors for their emergency treatment of life threatening conditions, they ARE NOT trained to give advice on diet and nutrition unless they themselves are a living example. We must educate ourselves and use common sense. There is a ton of money to be made from unhealthy people, and we can't trust the medical community to do what is in our best interests.