“Saunas protect women's hearts the way they protect men's.”

The research found this

Almost every Kuopio sauna study counted only men. The study began in the 1980s with 2,682 men, and women weren't invited until a later examination that ran from 1998 to 2001.1Source 1 · Cohort studyAssociation Between Sauna Bathing and Fatal Cardiovascular and All-Cause Mortality EventsLaukkanen T, Khan H, Zaccardi F, et al.. JAMA Internal Medicine, 2015.Read the paper ↗PubMed ↗2Source 2 · Cohort studySauna bathing is associated with reduced cardiovascular mortality and improves risk prediction in men and women: a prospective cohort studyLaukkanen T, Kunutsor SK, Khan H, et al.. BMC Medicine, 2018.Read the paper ↗PubMed ↗ Two sauna papers use that mixed sample. One looked at cardiovascular deaths and the other at stroke.

The cardiovascular paper followed 1,688 people (867 of them women) for a median of 15 years.2Source 2 · Cohort studySauna bathing is associated with reduced cardiovascular mortality and improves risk prediction in men and women: a prospective cohort studyLaukkanen T, Kunutsor SK, Khan H, et al.. BMC Medicine, 2018.Read the paper ↗PubMed ↗ Among the women, 24 of 278 weekly bathers died of cardiovascular disease, and none of the 73 who went four to seven times a week did. A hazard ratio compares death rates between two groups, and 1.00 means no difference. For women who went two or three times a week, the hazard ratio against weekly bathers was 1.00. The top group's zero deaths can't produce a ratio at all, so the paper gives no estimate for them.

All 8 deaths in the combined top group were men, and among men four to seven sessions a week carried a hazard ratio of 0.39. A test for a difference between the sexes wasn't statistically significant, so the data can't show that women respond differently either.2Source 2 · Cohort studySauna bathing is associated with reduced cardiovascular mortality and improves risk prediction in men and women: a prospective cohort studyLaukkanen T, Kunutsor SK, Khan H, et al.. BMC Medicine, 2018.Read the paper ↗PubMed ↗ The stroke paper drew on the same examination and found no difference in the sauna link by sex. Its abstract gives no separate estimate for women.3Source 3 · Cohort studySauna bathing reduces the risk of stroke in Finnish men and womenKunutsor SK, Khan H, Zaccardi F, et al.. Neurology, 2018.Read the paper ↗PubMed ↗

Short heat experiments include more women, though still fewer than men. A 2026 audit went through 73 studies that heated people at rest. Of their 1,392 participants, 427 were women, and none of the studies was built to compare the sexes.4Source 4 · Systematic reviewPassive heat intervention research in women: Systematic review and audit of female representationMee JA, Barnes O, Lawrence EJ, et al.. Experimental Physiology, 2026.Read the paper ↗PubMed ↗ One eight-week Finnish trial tilted the other way. Women made up 42 of its 48 people, and adding a sauna after exercise lowered their systolic pressure (the top number) by 8 mmHg more than exercise alone.5Source 5 · Randomized trialEffects of regular sauna bathing in conjunction with exercise on cardiovascular function: a multi-arm, randomized controlled trialLee E, Kolunsarka I, Kostensalo J, et al.. American Journal of Physiology-Regulatory, Integrative and Comparative Physiology, 2022.Read the paper ↗PubMed ↗