Sauna suits and dry saunas promote sweating, but that's where the similarities end. Sauna suits are like whole-body vapor barriers that you wear during a workout to make you drop water weight. Dry saunas are hot, dry rooms where you sit and relax. People never exercise in a sauna, but they do sweat. Since the relative humidity is so low in a dry sauna, you usually don't notice sweat dripping off your body. When you pull off a sauna suit, however, it will be dripping wet.
Sauna Suit
Sauna suits are usually made of some kind of plastic, rubber or PVC. Their function is to keep sweat from evaporating off the body. The evaporation of sweat is what allows your body to regulate temperature, so if the sweat can't evaporate, you can't keep yourself cool. Your body will continue perspiring in a futile effort to cool down. If you exercise while wearing the sauna suit, you will produce even more sweat. This situation can lead to a substantial loss of water weight, so you might step on a scale after your workout to find you have dropped several pounds within a few hours. Although that might seem exciting, what you've really done is put yourself at risk for dehydration and heat-related illnesses, including heat cramps, heat exhaustion and heat stroke.
Dry Sauna
A dry sauna is a small room or a cabinet used to create a dry heat bath, according to the Merriam-Webster dictionary. Saunas usually have an electrical heating element that warms up the little room to 80 or 90 degrees F. According to "Facts and Fables About Sauna" by K. Kauppinen, published in the "Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences in 1997," sauna baths usually involve several hot-cool cycles. Sauna bathers stay in the hot room as long as they can tolerate it --- about five to 20 minutes for most people --- then to cool down, they take a cool shower, run out into icy air, or just return to a normal-temperature room.
Advantages
Although sauna suits have long been popular as a quick weight loss method, there are no proven health advantages to this method. Dry saunas, on the other hand, can provide a quiet and relaxing or pleasantly social environment. In an Israeli study published in Spring 2007 in the journal "Experimental and Clinical Cardiology," researcher Nava Blum found that long-term sauna bathing may help lower blood pressure in patients with hypertension.
Risks
With a sauna suit or a dry sauna, there is a risk of overheating and dehydration. Although dry saunas are safe for most people, you should be aware of how you feel in the sauna and leave the room when you start to feel too hot. Don't mix booze and a dry sauna --- it will be harder for you to tell when it's time to leave.
Abuse
Using a sauna suit or a dry sauna to lose weight through dehydration is misuse. If you use a dry sauna, follow the posted instructions, don't stay in too long, and stay well-hydrated. If you have a medical condition, make sure your doctor approves of dry sauna use.
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