Can't Sweat It

A new article from Scientific American.
Heavy-Metal Sweat
Does an infrared sauna really detoxify the body?

By Gary Stix

I received a call several months ago from a publicist for a company promoting an infrared sauna--a machine that is supposed to heat the body, not the surrounding air, and so produce sweat more efficiently. The company, Sunlight Saunas, contends that users experience the "same healing energy that is released naturally by the sun." On its Web site, it claims, as do abundant other Internet-based sellers of infrared saunas, an amazing list of health benefits: pain relief, weight loss, detoxification, increased circulation, cholesterol removal and a boost for the "immuse [sic] system.

...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."

A trip to Klinghardt's Web site turns up a document that states that sauna therapy can leach toxins from the body. But Klinghardt notes that the poisons can also be displaced from "one body compartment to another." Mercury (beware those old dental fillings) might shift from connective tissue to the brain, according to Klinghardt. That is, unless the patient ingests sufficient quantities of cilantro, garlic and chlorella (green algae) in conjunction with taking saunas. Oooo-kay. Needless to say, I didn't follow up by looking for references to this area of research in the National Library of Medicine. Sunlight Saunas also provided me with testimonials about the Solo's benefits from patients with Lyme disease, cancer and "general toxic overload."

I wasn't ready quite yet to go hunting down chlorella. I wanted to see what the allopathic (nonalternative) world had to say about detoxification. I called Roger Clemens, director of an analytical laboratory at the University of Southern California that evaluates environmental toxins in the food supply. Clemens remarked that the most efficient system for detoxification is not an infrared sauna but rather the kidneys, liver, gastrointestinal tract and immune system. "Except when one of the major organs breaks down, there isn't a medical device or any diet that can accelerate the body's natural process of detoxification," he says.
...

Please go to the Scientific American website to read the whole article. Thanks to Dr. H. H. for directing skeptical types to this article.

Infrared saunas are specifically sold to parents of autistic kids for the purpose of making the kids sweat mercury out through their pores. One wonders though, mercury being such nasty stuff, what keeps it from being absorbed back into the body through the skin?

The same company mentioned in the Scientific American article, Sunlight Saunas, has a page wherein a doctor gives a testimonial on how she uses their product to "detoxify" autistic children. The doctor would appear to be a DAN! doctor to the stars:

Dr. Rachel West is an Osteopath and Family Practice Physician with offices in Beverly Hills and Santa Monica, California. ... Dr. West specializes in chronic disease, ... and childhood Autism.

Dr. West treats patients with childhood Autism nationwide and is recognized as a certified DAN (Defeat Autism Now) Practitioner.

... Whereas chelation therapy can be very expensive, difficult to administer and cause negative side effects, Sunlight Saunas are a non-toxic, no side-effect way of ridding the body of harmful pollutants, especially heavy metals. ...

The writer of the above copy apparently doesn't understand that the stated goal of Deaf Autism Now! is urgent and so the name of the organization requires an exclamation point, even when written as an acronym ( e.g. DAN!).

It is good at this point to remember the malpractice suits that were won against Stephen B. Edelson, M.D. of Atlanta, Georgia, who harmed autistic children with saunas among other of his "therapies".
From the decision in the civil suit against Edelson, (the family's name has been removed for their privacy):

30. Defendants also insisted that the T family install a home sauna to continue with "detoxification." Defendants sold this sauna to the T family at substantial profit on the sale and Defendant Edelson was paid a "kick back" by the sauna dealer from whom Defendants purchased the sauna.

Edelson Center Closed after Three Suits Alleging Fraud and Malpractice, an article by Stephen Barrett, M.D.
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See also this Newsweek article on autism mentions a family installing a $3,500 sauna for the supposed detoxification of their autistic sons.


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