Does a bath help with coronavirus, what happens to the virus in a steam room?

The active spread of the new virus has a lot of negative consequences. It is not surprising that people are frantically looking for ways to avoid illness. Does a bath help with coronavirus? Unfortunately no. If you regularly steam in a bathhouse, it will strengthen your immunity. No more.

How does coronavirus feel in a bathhouse?

To begin with, the new virus SARS-CoV-2 of the Coronavirus family has not been fully studied. And although some studies have already been conducted in China, the results have not yet received expert confirmation.

It is tentatively reported that the coronavirus is sensitive to high temperatures:

• at +56 degrees it dies in half an hour;
• at +70 degrees it is completely destroyed in 5 minutes.

Based on the fact that the air temperature in the steam room often exceeds 60 degrees, many conclude that the coronavirus dies in the bathhouse. There is another justification: it is generally accepted that at high body temperatures, viruses inside are destroyed.

These judgments are partly correct:

1. 95% of bacteria and viruses do not survive inside a steam room. Coronavirus is one of them. However, you spend most of your time in the waiting room, which can be infested with harmful microorganisms. Especially if the bathhouse is public.
2. In the steam room, the human body heats up to 39–40 degrees. Increasing temperatures help protective systems work more efficiently. Processes in the immune system proceed faster, the period of antibody production is reduced. However, heat does not kill the coronavirus inside the body.This person would literally have to be cooked.

If coronavirus has entered the body, no medicines or traditional methods can eradicate it. Let's turn to the biology of viruses: penetrating immune cells, they are embedded in DNA and become part of the genome. Only antibodies can destroy them. It will take at least 5 days to produce them.

The benefits of a bath during coronavirus

Coronavirus is not afraid of the bathhouse, but it avoids people who regularly visit it. What is the benefit of this event?

• Steam, high temperature and sweating help cleanse the skin and mucous membranes. This is the first thing the coronavirus encounters. If the local immunity of the membranes is in order, the likelihood of the pathogen entering the body will significantly decrease.
• Baths and saunas increase blood flow, as a result of which the entire body begins to work more harmoniously. Under the influence of high temperatures, capillaries expand and blood rushes through the vessels. With systematic visits to the bathhouse, stagnation disappears. The delivery of nutrients to all corners of the body improves. Metabolic processes in cells are accelerated. All this generally strengthens the immune system.
• Bath procedures harden you. Under normal conditions, during hypothermia, immune protection decreases - and the risk of becoming infected with any virus increases significantly. In a hardened person, the immune system is always “on guard” due to good thermoregulation of the body.
• The bathhouse relieves stress and has a positive effect on the nervous system. It doesn’t save you from coronavirus, but it fights worries about the pandemic very effectively. Due to the dilation of peripheral blood vessels in the skin, subcutaneous tissue and muscles, blood drains from the brain. The activity of cortical structures decreases. Inhibition and relaxation sets in.The person feels relaxed and at peace.

Start by going into the steam room for 3-5 minutes. Select the bottom shelf. Lie down, raise your legs up and relax. When you get out, douse yourself with cool water or dive into the pool. When the condition is completely normalized, you can take a steam bath again. The recommended total time spent in the steam room is 30–45 minutes.

Harm of a bath during coronavirus

If you are infected with coronavirus, visiting a bathhouse will do more harm than good.

• During bath procedures, the skin secretes 0.5–1.2 sweat, which consists of 99% water. If the bathhouse is abused or visited during an illness, the loss of fluid can have a very negative effect. It is not for nothing that it is recommended to drink a lot during ARVI and flu. Violation of the water-salt balance entails disruptions in the functioning of the immune system.
• The high temperature in the steam room puts strain on the blood vessels and heart. While fighting the virus, they are weakened. A visit to the bathhouse can cause unpredictable consequences.
• At a temperature of 37 degrees, and even more so with a fever, going to the sauna and bathhouse is strictly contraindicated (fever, as you know, is one of the most common symptoms of coronavirus). Violation of this rule is fraught with a heart attack.

Theoretically, bath procedures against coronavirus can be beneficial at the beginning of infection, when it is necessary to boost the immune system or destroy the virus on the skin that has not yet been activated. However, at this stage there are no symptoms yet. And when they arose, it was already too late. The body is busy fighting, and additional stress in the form of a temperature load will, at best, weaken it.

So, the coronavirus cannot be expelled from the body by bathing. If signs of illness appear, going to the steam room is more likely to do harm. The infection should be treated under the supervision of a doctor. And steaming is recommended for prevention. If you do this systematically and follow all the rules, your immunity will work like clockwork, and the likelihood of developing viral pneumonia will decrease.