Cheers
April 9, 2024
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Hot bath burns as many calories as walking, study reveals

It's winter, the days are cold and all you want is to get wrapped in the covers. If in summer your mood for exercise is already down there, imagine then in winter!

The lower temperatures actually cut off a part (or a large part!) Of the willingness of many people, who end up feeling very unwell to practice any kind of physical activity.

The problem is that we no longer burn off the extra calories we eat along with the cups of hot chocolate, freshly baked cheesecake and wine glasses that help warm the coldest nights.

So, you know what happens: when we eat a little more and don't exercise, those extra calories turn into accumulated pounds.

If you suffer from this unwillingness to do physical activities and feel like a hibernating bear, this news will make you very happy: apparently taking a hot bath can burn as many calories as taking a walk!

Read also: 7 Reasons to Leave the Gym and Exercise at Home or in the Park

Bike, walk and hot baths

Do you know when you face a stressful day at work, get cold all the way home, and feel your muscles stiff from tension and low temperature? Nothing better than a bath to relax in these cases, right?

So what's new is that, according to Dr. Steve Faulkner, a researcher at Loughborough University in England, taking a hot shower can be as effective as exercising when it comes to health benefits.

Dr. Faulkner's research looked at a group of 14 men who participated in two tests: the first was to ride a bike for an hour, and the second was to take a bath at 40 ° C for the same amount of time? Both activities were programmed to increase participants' body temperature by 1 ° C.

As expected, biking actually burned more calories than taking a hot shower, but the good news for? Hibernating bears? who are not very close to exercises was yet to come.

Hibernating but fitness bear

The surprising finding came when researchers realized that by raising the body temperature of study participants who were taking a bath by 1 ° C, they burned the same amount of calories as doing 30 minutes of walking? about 140 calories.

Also read: 10 activities to burn 100 calories without going to the gym

The participants' blood sugar level remained practically equivalent in all three activities; however, after the hot shower, people had 10% lower post-meal glycemic peaks than after exercise. This is interesting information for obesity research, since the glycemic peak is one of the major responsible for the accumulation of fat, especially in the abdominal region.

In addition, the hot bath also triggered an anti-inflammatory response similar to that caused by exercise. This suggests that continued passive warming may help reduce chronic inflammation, which is often present in diseases such as type 2 diabetes.

Passive heating: a new object of study

Is raising the body temperature of participants taking a long hot shower called passive warming? as opposed to the rise in temperature that happens when we engage in physical activity. Recently, science has been studying how this effect can benefit our health.

A study from Finland published in 2015 suggests that saunas can reduce the risk of a heart attack or stroke? at least in men. This idea that passive warming can contribute to heart health was reinforced by a University of Oregon survey published in 2016 showing that taking hot showers can lower blood pressure.

The metabolic effects of immersion bath at elevated temperatures were first studied in 1999 at the McKnee Medical Center of Colorado, USA. The results of this research showed improvements in blood glucose control, weight loss, and reduced insulin dependence in patients with type 2 diabetes.