Health & Fitness

In a recent MedCram interview (above), Rhonda Patrick, Ph.D., cofounder of Found My Fitness, provided a wonderful summary of the benefits of sauna therapy, and some of the basic principles of sauna treatment.

Further below, I’ve also included another excellent video featuring neuroscientist Dr. Andrew Huberman, in which he takes a deep dive into the science of how and why heating is so beneficial for health, both when locally applied and when using a sauna.

I have been a huge fan of sauna therapy for nearly a decade and have learned a great deal along the way. In later sections, I will attempt to summarize my understanding of how to best implement sauna for maximum biological benefits, which include detoxification and heat shock protein amplification. I’ll also review how you can get the benefits of photobiomodulation from your sauna by using heat bulbs that also provided near- and mid-infrared frequencies.

Temperature Matters

The key to achieving the first two benefits — detoxification and heat shock protein amplification — is to make sure the sauna is hot enough. Most all of the research documenting sauna benefits comes from Finland, which uses traditional saunas where the temperatures range from 160 to 200 degrees Fahrenheit.

Most saunas sold in the U.S. are far-infrared (IR) which are considerably more energy efficient than a Finnish sauna and typically less expensive. However, there are several problems with most far-IR saunas. When they were initially introduced in the U.S., most were very high in magnetic and electric fields (EMF).

Over time, most of the far-IR sauna companies have been able to radically reduce the magnetic fields but it is the rare company that has eliminated the electric fields. Buyer beware, as there are a number of popular IR saunas today that are very high in both magnetic and electric fields. These tend to be the smaller, typically portable units where your head sticks out.

But there’s an even more important consideration with far-IR saunas than EMF, and that’s the temperature they can reach. It is the rare far-IR sauna that is able to go higher than 140 degrees F., and this simply isn’t hot enough to provide the detox and heat shock protein benefits achieved at 160 degrees F.

So, my recommendation is to steer clear of buying most far-IR saunas. There are some that would reach the temperatures needed and are essentially EMF-free, but there is an even better approach that I will discuss in the following sections.

If you have already purchased a far-IR sauna, there’s no need to worry or have buyer’s remorse. You can easily modify your sauna to be one of the best in the world. Before I get into that though, I’ll summarize some of the information Patrick shares in her interview.

The Duration of Each Session Matters

The duration of each session is also important, with respect to the robustness of the results. Patrick cites research from Finland, which used traditional Finnish sauna at 174 degrees F., with a humidity level between 10% and 20%.

Using this kind of sauna, people who used the sauna four to seven times a week, for 19 minutes or longer, were 50% less likely to die from cardiovascular-related disease. Those whose sessions averaged only 11 minutes only reduced their cardiovascular death risk by 8%, which is no minor difference. So, the sweet spot appears to be about 20 minutes, four to seven times a week, in a 174-degree F. sauna.

The Many Health Benefits of Sauna Therapy

Research has demonstrated sauna use can:

Improve cardiovascular fitness and lower your risk of death from cardiovascular disease, stroke and heart attack

Lower your blood pressure

Lower your risk of dementia

Improve your mood and mental health, and reduce symptoms of depression, in part by sensitizing opioid receptors

Strengthen your immune function

Reduce all-cause mortality

Improve athletic endurance

Reduce inflammation by lowering c-reactive protein, and increasing IL-10 and IL-6 (a.k.a. myokine), and activating Nrf2

Activate and replenish stem cells

Improve fasting glucose and insulin sensitivity

Reduce the stress hormone cortisol1

All of these benefits occur in a dose-dependent manner, so the more frequent your sauna use, the more robust your benefits will be.

For example, using the sauna two to three times a week has been shown to reduce your risk of cardiac death by about 22% compared to once-a-week use, whereas those who use it seven times a week lower their risk by 63%. Similarly, those who use it four to seven times a week have a 40% lower all-cause mortality risk than those who use it only once a week.

And, as explained in the interview, combining sauna with other strategies, such as cold-water immersion and/or exercise can optimize these kinds of benefits even further. That said, more sauna is not necessarily better in all instances, as you will lose toxins but might also deplete your body of beneficial minerals.

Sauna Therapy Mimics Moderate Exercise

While there’s a well-known aspect of meditation to sauna bathing, it actually mimics moderate cardiovascular exercise, triggering many of the same physiological responses — and benefits.

Physiological responses that mimic those of exercise include sweating, increased blood flow to the skin and muscles, increased plasma volume and elevated heart rate, lowered blood pressure, endorphin release and increased brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF, which acts as an antiaging agent for the brain).

These help account for many of the cardiovascular benefits of sauna, as well as some of the neurological benefits. Sauna is also an excellent adjunct to exercise, as the two augments each other’s benefits.

Patrick cites research comparing people who did aerobic exercise only, sauna only, and those who did aerobic exercise in combination with sauna. In the final analysis, those who did both had better cardiorespiratory fitness than those who did either alone.

The Science of Heat and Heating for Health and Healing

For an even deeper dive into the science and benefits of heating, be sure to listen to this Huberman Lab Podcast (video above). For example, heat stress, such as sauna bathing, but also locally applied heat, will convert white fat, which is not very metabolically active and acts as a fuel reserve (basically what we think of as body fat), into beige and brown fat, which are rich in mitochondria.

The mitochondria in beige and brown fat act as a sort of furnace for the heating mechanism in your body, and as a result increase your metabolism and the burning of fat. Huberman also discusses a sauna protocol involving repetitive hot and cold exposure that can increase the amount of growth hormone 16-fold, and other recent science findings.

Why Heat Shock Proteins Are so Beneficial

As their name implies, heat shock proteins are activated by heat stress. Patrick cites research showing sitting in a 163-degree F. sauna for 30 minutes raises heat shock protein levels about 50% above baseline, and once activated, they remain activated for about 48 hours. Importantly, heat shock proteins refold misfolded proteins inside your cells and help proteins maintain their three-dimensional structure. This allows the proteins to function normally.

Unstructured proteins tend to aggregate, and these aggregates can then form plaques in your vascular system or brain, contributing to neurodegenerative diseases and cardiovascular problems. This can be very useful in dementia, where misfolded proteins like beta amyloid and tau proteins accumulate and contribute to memory deterioration.

Heat shock proteins have also been shown to prevent muscle atrophy, even if the heat is merely applied locally. As noted by Patrick, this has major relevance for those with sarcopenia (age-related muscle loss) and the physically disabled. They may not be able to exercise, but they can sit in a sauna.

Effective Detox With Sauna

Sauna bathing is also an effective way to detoxify your body of any number of toxins, including heavy metals and various chemicals. Patrick notes:

“Compounds like heavy metals ... phthalates or BPA can be excreted through sweat or ... through urine. Some are excreted more predominantly through sweat and others are more predominantly excreted through urine, so for the ones that are more predominantly excreted through sweat, you can imagine the robust effect that sauna use has on them — cadmium being one.

There's been studies looking at sweating from sauna use where there's a 122-fold increase in sweating out cadmium. Another one is aluminum. Aluminum is also excreted quite well from sweat, and you do excrete things like BPA, [even though] the major pathway that BPA is eliminated through is through urine.”

Basic Guidance for Safe Sauna Use

While sauna use is safe for the vast majority of people, it’s best to discuss it with your doctor before starting. Some basic guidance for safe sauna use include:

Set a timer in case you get drowsy, and either have someone with you in the sauna or have someone come check on you from time to time

Start slow and work your way up to the recommended temperature and duration ranges

Rehydrate with electrolytes to replace lost sodium and minerals. One simple option is to make a salt sole with Himalayan salt crystals dissolved in water, and take some extra magnesium

Never drink alcohol before or during sauna use, as it could have lethal consequences

Take extra precautions if you’re elderly, have recently had a heart attack or other cardiac problem or have low blood pressure

Children do not have the same thermal regulation mechanisms as adults, so they should limit their time in the sauna to five minutes

Avoid sauna bathing while pregnant, as there may be poorly understood risks to the fetus

Can Sauna Reduce Your Diabetes Risk?

Interestingly, sauna use may also reduce your risk for diabetes by improving fasting glucose and insulin sensitivity. While this is mostly speculative at this point, it does makes sense to me, so I think it’s likely. Curiously though, glucose can actually read high after sauna use, but over time, your metabolic flexibility will improve, as well as your glucose control. Patrick explains:

“There may just be some kind of funny thing going on, honestly. It might have a lot to do with the sweating ... [It] makes sense that if you're sweating ... the concentration of sugar is going to appear higher, but that's not a real thing. It’s just concentration.”

How Photobiomodulation (PBM) Can Boost Sauna Benefits

As mentioned, photobiomodulation or PBM can turn the benefits of sauna therapy up another notch. PBM is simply the term used to describe the use of light therapy to achieve beneficial biological effects. Typically, this involves using red and IR wavelengths with enough energy to improve health. The primary benefits of PBM are twofold.

The traditional view is that the frequencies activate cytochrome IV in the mitochondria to improve the efficiency of ATP generation. Recently, it became clear that red and near-IR light also increase melatonin production in the mitochondria, which decreases oxidative stress and secondary free radical damage in the mitochondria.

While traditional and some far-IR saunas can provide outstanding benefits in detox and heat shock protein generation, neither of them provide the light wavelengths to generate PBM benefits.

Fortunately, there is a type of sauna that can provide all three benefits, and that would be a sauna that uses incandescent heat lamps that produce the majority of the heat as mid-IR, and a significant percentage of near- and mid-IR frequencies capable of producing PBM benefits.

While you can create your own bulb system to build this kind of sauna, there is a company that has done the hard work and created panels with four bulbs that are of the highest quality, and have a guard over the bulbs that prevent glass from injuring you in the event that a bulb might break.

Breaking bulbs during use is usually the result of spilling some kind of liquid on the hot bulbs. This could be your sweat or a drink that might be in the sauna. The shields also protect you from serious burns if you accidentally touch the hot bulbs. You will still get a burn on the shield, but it will be far less severe. The name of the company that provides these bulb units is Sauna Space.²

Sauna Space does sell complete saunas, but in their current configuration, I believe there is room for improvement. The one with a faraday cage that blocks external EMFs is $5,000 and the one without that shielding is about $3,000. They are not as elegant as most IR saunas and most people have to bend over to fit in them, but the major problem is that they aren't hot enough. The current configuration offers one set of four bulbs, which will get the temperature to around 125 degrees F.

While I have been enamored with Sauna Space for some time, I want to express my gratitude to Ari Whiten in helping me understand one of their main flaws, their single panel saunas don't get hot enough. Fortunately, the simple fix is to merely double the number of bulbs from four to eight. I've shared my thoughts with Brian, the founder of SaunaSpace, and they're currently developing an eight-bulb system that meets this specification. I've been using a prototype for nearly a year and the sauna can easily get up to 200 degrees F.³

This is far too high for most, as unlike conventional or far IR saunas, these frequencies can actually penetrate a few inches into your body, and heat you up far more effectively than either of the other types of sauna. Most people achieve the optimal heat shock protein and detox benefits by starting at 140 degrees and building up a tolerance. Over a few weeks, you should be able to increase the temperature to 160 degrees F.

How Do You Know if the Sauna Is Hot Enough?

How can you determine the air temperature of your sauna? You can get an analog thermometer that goes up to 180 degrees F. for about $10 on Amazon. Once you know the temperature of your sauna, you will be able to correlate it with the biologic reactions that indicate you have achieved a high-enough core body temperature.

The first and most important criteria is to make sure you are sweating enough. The easiest way to do this is to accurately measure your naked body weight before going into the sauna and then re-weigh yourself naked when you get out.

One pint of water (sweat) equals 1 pound. Depending on your size, you should lose 1 to 2 pints during the therapy. The most I have lost is 4 pints of water, which is half a gallon or two liters of water. This was before I had the temperature dialed in as that is too great a water loss. Ideally, you'll want to lose between 1 and 2 pints of water (a drop of 1 to 2 pounds of bodyweight) during a session.

One of the things you can do about one hour before your sauna is drink a quart of water. It's best to add some electrolytes. I use two packets of our Pure Power electrolytes in the water along with a teaspoon of glycine powder.

The other biologic parameter you can measure is your body temperature. You can use a simple oral thermometer to measure your temperature before and immediately after the sauna. Your temperature should increase by 3 to 5 degrees F. If you meet the temperature and sweat criteria, your sauna is hot enough to detox and generate heat shock proteins.

How to Convert a Far IR Sauna to One of the Best in the World

The good news is, if you already have a far IR sauna, it's incredibly easy to convert it into a near-IR sauna. All you need to do is to remove the bench seat and install a set of hooks to hang the heat lamp panels. You will need two four-bulb panels for a total of eight bulbs.

Each panel has three switches that allows you to have a great deal of control in modulating the heat output. When you first turn on the panels, you'll want all the switches on so the sauna can heat up rapidly. With all eight bulbs on, most saunas will be able to heat up to 160 degrees F. in about 20 minutes, which is far quicker than the time it takes for a far IR sauna to reach maximum temperature.

You will also need a stool to sit on, as the bench will be removed. You can get a nice untreated basswood stool from Sauna Space,⁴ but it's a bit pricey at $250. Just make sure to use a stool that doesn't outgas toxic substances at high temperatures. Wood will not outgas, but many synthetic materials will.

How to Use Your Near-IR Sauna

Once you are in the sauna, the total treatment time is 20 minutes. It's best to bring a timer into the sauna so you can switch positions every five minutes. First, sit on the bench facing the bulbs. You should be about 2 feet away. If the heat is too intense, move further back.

After five minutes, turn around on the bench with your back facing the bulbs. The next five minutes, you can turn around but stand up facing the bulbs. The last five minutes turn around again so you are standing with your back to the bulbs.

It is helpful not to look at the bulbs for long periods. You also might want to consider a cooling ice wrap⁵ around your head, as it does not appear to be necessary to heat your bran in the sauna. An ice wrap will help keep your brain cool. Men might also want to put a towel over their scrotum so their genitals don't heat up, which could impair sperm production.

It will also be important to use enough towels to capture all your sweat. Remember, you will be sweating nearly a quart (1 liter) of water. If you don't capture your sweat, you will contaminate the sauna with the toxins you are excreting. Even worse, you will create an environment that will lead to mold growth, and the mold toxins will likely be worse than the ones you are excreting.

Building Your Own Sauna

If you don't already own a far IR sauna that you can convert, then one option is to purchase a used one. You might even be able to find a far IR sauna that is not working and the owner is willing to give it to you for free. That will work, as you will not be using the heating element in the sauna anyway. You're merely using the sauna as an enclosure for the heat lamp panels, so you can heat the space up to 160 degrees F.

You might be able to use two panels in a shower if you have a walk-in shower. However, you will need to be very careful not to get any water on the bulbs as they can burst and, obviously, water and electricity and not a good combination as you could get electrocuted. But it is technically possible, especially if you have someone skilled install it.

The last option might be the best, as you can create a custom sauna for yourself and your family that is even better than a wooden IR sauna. You can create a room with the dimensions below, and then tile the entire inside of the room. The benefit of tiles is that they are very easy to clean, which is important, as anyone using the sauna will release toxins that should be washed out.

If you want to go the extra step you could even put a drain in the floor to make cleaning even easier. Installing a glass shower door for the entrance would also work well. It would also make sense to shield the room with a radiant barrier material commonly used for roofs. This will reflect the IR radiation back into the sauna and serve to allow the sauna to heat up even faster. It will also help shield the sauna from external EMFs.

Here are the interior dimensions of the near IR sauna. You could make it larger but it will take longer to heat up the space:

• Length — 60 inches (from back of saunas where lights are, to the glass shower door in the front)
• Width — 52 inches
• Height — 78 inches
• Tile for all interior surfaces, and one floor drain

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Fjällbete, a farm in Undersåker, Sweden, is making waves in its community for reverting back to an age-old connection with the land — and in so doing, a new generation of youth are feeling the call to regenerative agriculture as a way to build a better world. Jörgen Andersson, who is now the driving force behind Fjällbete, came from a conventional farming background — driving tractors and relying on machinery is the way he was brought up to farm.

When he was a child, animals — particularly cows — began to disappear from the landscape and with their removal came a noticeable degradation in the soil. It wasn’t until later in life that Andersson made the connection that taking animals away from agriculture was detrimental, but when he started Fjällbete about 20 years ago, he said, “People remembered the animals that used to be here. In such a short period of time, all the animals were gone.”¹

Animals Shape the Landscape

As a regional hub of the Savory Global Network, Fjällbete is the learning site for Holistic Management Sverige — the Savory Hub in Sweden. Livestock integration with grazing management is just one part of regenerative agriculture practices that are allowing farmers around the globe to largely avoid chemical pesticides, fertilizers and other pitfalls of industrial farming while building carbon-rich soil that increases crop health and livestock yields.

At Fjällbete, their mission is to “close the gap between the land and its people”² — to restore “laghum,” an ancient Swedish word that means “what works for everybody.” “To make things laghum is to address the distance between people and the land,” the film states,³ and this starts with the return of animals.

“The connection here in the tourism area, there was a knowledge that the landscape was shaped by those animals, or it was an intuitive thing that when you see them back in the landscape, you felt so good,” Andersson said, and “that’s even before they start to learn how beneficial the animals are in the landscape.”⁴

Holistic management practices acknowledge the complexity of living systems and the fact that animals, people, plants and much more, such as fungi, all must co-exist and form interconnected relationships.

While conventional farming has attempted to simplify the natural world into monocultures where one crop exists at a time, at the expense of other plants, insects and wildlife, regenerative agriculture embraces complex ecosystems and aims to work in concert with them. As explained by the Savory Institute, which is working to facilitate the large-scale regeneration of the world’s grasslands using holistic management:⁵

“The natural world is comprised of beautifully- and infinitely-complex adaptive living systems … and the way we manage decisions amidst complex living systems matters.

In this modern, industrial era, we have all been taught from an early age to reduce a problem down to its simplest components. This works for machines and other ‘complicated’ systems whose individual parts can be fully defined, but when biology enters the picture, so too must humility and a shift from ‘control’ to ‘cooperation.’”

Animals Serve a Greater Purpose

When Andersson started Fjällbete, there had been no animals on the land for 30 years. He described reintroducing animals to the farm as a form of coming home — a feeling that resonated with others in his community.

“The whole concept of holistic management is that we can offer a way of making use of the land that is viable and competitive that we didn’t know of before,” Andersson said. While at one time, Andersson was content to run his own farm in isolation of the community around him, now, he says, “The goal is not to be taking care of my own farm on my own.”⁶

Instead, “Fjällbete is facilitating a Nordic network for regenerative agriculture and helping people explore their ‘caring capacity’ as farmers and community builders.”⁷ The goal is for community collaboration to naturally trigger expansion that’s healing to the land and puts animals back at the center of the regeneration process.

Holistic planned grazing is key to regenerative agriculture and also the ecological restoration of grasslands, as it mimics the natural predator/prey relationships that have existed in the environment for ages.⁸ Andersson is now seeing an influx of young people with a desire to give back to the land, even though they don’t come from a farming background.

Young People Find Magic in Agriculture

Maja Bohlin, a shepherdess and community builder at Fjällbete, said she feels most at ease and happiest when she’s working with the land. When people come to visit, they feel the sense that Fjällbete is more than a business or a hobby or a workplace. “It’s bigger than that,” she says.⁹ The animals, too, have a greater purpose, helping to regenerate the soil and thereby helping the people who live on the land.

“There’s so many levels to it. It’s not only helping the soil and helping the land,” Bohlin said, “It’s also, when you see people just coming to pay a visit, to help you move the sheep, for example, and you can see the spark in their eyes … these animals actually change the world … and to be a part of that, I feel proud of that.”¹⁰

Knowing that they’re making a difference to regenerate the landscape brings meaning to life and is attracting a growing number of young people to the farm. Adam Bergstedt is another shepherd and community builder at Fjällbete, who says he can’t explain logically why he needed to come — “It was a deep calling from the forest, from the land,” he said.¹¹

The connection he feels to the land guides how he eats and interacts with the land and the people around him — and the message he shares. “A landscape that is for everybody, every body … the cow and the goat and the bird and the insect and all the bodies, having the landscape in such a way where it is best for everyone.”¹²

As they bring sheep to graze on a grassy area in a ski slope, Josephine Eilso Mors, also a shepherdess and community builder at Fjällbete, explains that what they’re doing doesn’t feel like a job, “It feels like a purpose.”¹³ After graduating high school, all of her friends went away to universities but she chose this more practical way of making a difference.

“The mixture of interacting with animals, interacting with people and moving your body — doing physical work — and having the view of the landscape,” she says, “it’s magical. Really.”¹⁴

Can Regenerative Farming Save the World?

Holistic management is one form of regenerative agriculture, which involves embracing the relationships between large herds of wild herbivores and grasslands, developing strategies to manage herds of domestic livestock to mimic wild herds. “Holistic Management is successful because it is cost-effective, highly scalable and nature-based,” the Savory Institute explains.¹⁵

Critics have brought up the fact that livestock can release excessive levels of methane into the environment, but this is only an issue with livestock raised in crowded conditions on concentrated animal feeding operations (CAFOs), which maintain manure lagoons and convert forests and grasslands into corn and soy monocultures used for animal feed.

“It is reasonable to conclude that an intact ecosystem effectively balances ruminant methane production and breakdown,” according to the Savory Institute, which continues:¹⁶

“Healthy, well-aerated soils — a characteristic quality of grasslands under Holistic Planned Grazing — harbor bacteria called methanotrophs, which break down methane. Soil-based decomposition of methane may be equal to or greater than ruminant methane production, depending on animal density, soil type and soil health. Thus, the benefits of eco-restoration through Holistic Management far outweigh methane emissions resulting from livestock.”

It's a boon for food security as well, because it allows landowners to increase profits and yields without putting the long-term viability of the land at risk. The use of holistic management for the preparation of agricultural crop fields can increase yields more than four-fold, without the need for additional inputs, according to the Savory Institute.¹⁷

While it may seem simplistic, the movement of herds of herbivores has a complex and beneficial role in increasing land productivity by up to 400%, which it accomplishes via:¹⁸

• Hooves that break up soil and trample plants, supporting seed germination and enhancing water filtration
• Grazing, which stimulates grass growth
• Dung and urine, which act as natural fertilizers to the soil

Desertification, which occurs when vast grasslands are plowed up, exposing the soil and causing water runoff and evaporation, is a growing problem too. According to data from the U.S. Department of Agriculture, nearly 2 million acres of federally protected grasslands and wetlands in North Dakota alone were taken out of the conservation program between 2007 and 2015.¹⁹

Holistic management and planned grazing can help here as well, as it increases organic matter in the soil, helping it to hold water. An increase in water holding capacity of 40% was demonstrated by one study on land using holistic planned grazing.²⁰ From increasing food security and mitigating drought to improving poverty by turning impoverished regions into productive ones, regenerative agriculture can, indeed, save the world. As Andersson put it:²¹

“If we want our kids to have a safe place to live in, what do we need to do to make that happen? … With our ingenuity and our creativity, there are so many places where we can enable and support and help life on this planet.

So we can obviously make this place greener and more diverse than it has ever been before. And to me that’s just step one. Regenerative agriculture is the natural step for mankind to take, now. That is the leap in progress, and there’s basically no other way.”

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This article was previously published September 9, 2019, and has been updated with new information.

Your immune system is your first-line defense against bacterial and viral infections, so the most effective way to prevent infectious illness is maintaining robust immune function. Your diet and other lifestyle factors are foundational for this, but certain supplements can also be helpful.

One such supplement is quercetin,1 an antioxidant flavonol found naturally in apples, plums, red grapes, green tea, elder flower and onions, just to name a few.²

Quercetin is one of those compounds with a wide range of benefits, making it useful for a variety of different conditions. That said, it's perhaps most known for its strong antioxidant³ and antiviral⁴ activity. Elderflower extract, which is rich in quercetin, is also a traditional tonic used to boost immunity.

In supplement form, quercetin has been used to ameliorate obesity, Type 2 diabetes,⁵ circulatory dysfunction, chronic inflammation, hay fever and mood disorders.⁶ Several studies have also highlighted quercetin's ability to prevent and treat the common cold and influenza.⁷

In fact, its antiviral capacity appears to be the primary focus of many studies looking at quercetin's benefits. But there are also other, less known uses for this supplement, including blood pressure control and tumor regression.

Quercetin May Lower Blood Pressure

For example, there's evidence to suggest quercetin benefits the heart, and can help lower blood pressure in patients with Stage 1 high blood pressure. As noted in one 2007 study:⁸

"Epidemiological studies report that quercetin … is associated with reduced risk of coronary heart disease and stroke … Men and women with prehypertension and stage 1 hypertension were enrolled in a randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled, crossover study to test the efficacy of 730 mg quercetin/d for 28 d[ays] vs. placebo.

Blood pressure at enrollment was … 148 +/- 2/96 +/- 1 in stage 1 hypertensive subjects … [R]eductions in systolic (-7 +/- 2 mm Hg), diastolic (-5 +/- 2 mm Hg), and mean arterial pressures (-5 +/- 2 mm Hg) were observed in stage 1 hypertensive patients after quercetin treatment … These data are the first to our knowledge to show that quercetin supplementation reduces blood pressure in hypertensive subjects."

Quercetin May Regress Tumors

Another study,⁹ published in Scientific Reports in 2016, found quercetin has the ability to trigger tumor regression by interacting with your DNA and activating the mitochondrial pathway of apoptosis, which is the programmed cell death of damaged cells. As noted in the abstract of this study:

"… quercetin induced cytotoxicity in leukemic cells in a dose-dependent manner … Besides leukemic cells, quercetin also induced cytotoxicity in breast cancer cells, however, its effect on normal cells was limited or none.

Further, quercetin caused S phase arrest during cell cycle progression in tested cancer cells … Importantly, administration of quercetin lead to ~5 fold increase in the life span in tumor bearing mice compared to that of untreated controls.

Further, we found that quercetin interacts with DNA directly, and could be one of the mechanisms for inducing apoptosis in both cancer cell lines and tumor tissues by activating the intrinsic pathway. Thus, our data suggests that quercetin can be further explored for its potential to be used in cancer therapeutics and combination therapy."

How Quercetin Combats Inflammation and Boosts Immunity

As mentioned, quercetin is most known for boosting immunity and combating inflammation. As noted in a 2016 study¹⁰ in the journal Nutrients, mechanisms of action include (but is not limited to) the inhibition of:¹¹

According to this paper, quercetin also stabilizes mast cells, has cytoprotective activity in the gastrointestinal tract, and "a direct regulatory effect on basic functional properties of immune cells," which allows it to inhibit "a huge panoply of molecular targets in the micromolar concentration range, either by down-regulating or suppressing many inflammatory pathways and functions."¹³

The following figure from the journal Nutrients¹⁴ shows the many possible pathways by which quercetin inhibits inflammation and boosts immune function. Table 1 in this study also summarizes the primary effects of quercetin on inflammation and immune function depending on the specific cell line used in the investigation.

Demonstrated Health Benefits of Quercetin

In animal models, quercetin has been shown to:¹⁵

• Ameliorate the inflammatory response induced by carrageenan,¹⁶ a common food additive
• Reduce the production of TNF-α in visceral adipose tissue (intra-abdominal fat that raises your risk of health complications such as Type 2 diabetes and heart disease)
• Reduce clinical signs of arthritis
• Improve recovery of motor function after spinal cord injury (according to this paper, "Intraperitoneal doses of 5-100 micromoles quercetin/kg body weight resulted in half or more of the animals walking … This ability to promote recovery from spinal cord injury appears to be highly dependent on the dose and frequency of dosing"

In human studies, quercetin has been shown to:¹⁷

• Reduce total sick days and symptom severity associated with upper-respiratory tract infection (URTI) in physically fit individuals over the age of 40 (dosage: 500 or 1000 mg/day for 12 weeks)
• Significantly reduce risk of illness, inflammation and oxidative stress after intense exercise
• Augment innate immune function in exercise-stressed athletes
• Reduce viral illness and boost mental performance after extreme physical stress that might otherwise undermine your immune function (in one study,¹⁸ 45% in the placebo group got sick with a cold or influenza after a strenuous three-day exercise routine, compared to just 5% in the treatment group, which received 1,000 milligrams quercetin combined with vitamin C and niacin to improve absorption)
• Protect against abroad spectrum of pathogens, including rhinoviruses, adenoviruses and coronaviruses

Quercetin Is a Potent Antiviral Remedy

Indeed, several studies have confirmed quercetin's effectiveness against a range of viral infections. Below, I list some of them. In summary, quercetin's powerful antiviral effects can be attributed to three main mechanisms of action:

1. Inhibiting the virus' ability to infect cells
2. Inhibiting replication of already infected cells
3. Reducing infected cells' resistance to treatment with antiviral medication

A 1985 study found quercetin inhibits infectivity and replication of herpes simplex virus type 1, polio-virus type 1, parainfluenza virus type 3 and respiratory syncytial virus.19

A 2010 animal study20 found quercetin inhibits influenza A and B viruses. Two other important discoveries were made: The viruses were unable to develop resistance to quercetin When used concomitant with antiviral drugs (amantadine or oseltamivir), the effect was significantly amplified — and it prevented drug-resistance from developing

A 2004 animal study investigating quercetin's effect on influenza used a strain of the H3N2 virus. According to the authors:21 "In the mice, instillation of influenza virus A/Udorn/317/72(H3N2) intranasally resulted in a significant decrease in the pulmonary concentrations of catalase, reduced glutathione and superoxide dismutase … These effects were observed on the 5th day after viral instillation. Oral supplementation with quercetin simultaneous with viral instillation produced significant increases in the pulmonary concentrations of catalase, reduced glutathione and superoxide dismutase … It is concluded that during influenza virus infection, there is 'oxidative stress.' Because quercetin restored the concentrations of many antioxidants, it is proposed that it may be useful as a drug in protecting the lung from the deleterious effects of oxygen derived free radicals released during influenza virus infection."

In 2014, researchers noted that quercetin appears to be "a promising treatment for the common cold" caused by the rhinovirus, adding that "Quercetin has been shown to reduce viral internalization and replication in vitro, and viral load, lung inflammation and airways hyper-responsiveness in vivo."22 By attenuating oxidative damage, it also lowers your risk of secondary bacterial infections, which is actually the primary cause of influenza-related deaths. Importantly, quercetin increases mitochondrial biogenesis in skeletal muscle, which suggests part of its antiviral effects are due to enhanced mitochondrial antiviral signaling. According to the authors: "… [I]n vitro studies have demonstrated that quercetin acts as a potent antiviral agent by inhibiting viral replication of several respiratory viruses, including influenza virus, parainfluenza virus, respiratory syncytial virus, adenovirus and rhinovirus. Although the quercetin's antiviral mechanisms are not well understood, a number of possibilities have been proposed and is summarized in Figure 1."

Research23 published in 2015 found quercetin inhibited hepatitis B virus replication in human liver cells, protecting cells from infection and limiting the spread of infection in already infected samples. What's more, when combined with antiviral drugs (lamivudine, entecavir or adefovir), the antiviral effect was greatly enhanced. According to the authors, "The results indicate that quercetin inhibited HBV [hepatitis B virus] antigen secretion and genome replication in human hepatoma cell lines, which suggests that quercetin may be a potentially effective anti-HBV agent." Other studies24,25 show quercetin can inhibit hepatitis C infection as well.

A 2016 animal study found quercetin inhibited mouse hepatitis virus and the dengue virus.26

Another 2016 study found quercetin offered protection against influenza A virus H1N1 by modulating protein expression. More specifically, the regulation of heat shock proteins, fibronectin 1 and prohibitin was instrumental in reducing viral replication.27

A third study published in 2016 found quercetin inhibited a wide spectrum of influenza strains, including H1N1, H3N2 and H5N1. According to the authors, "This study indicates that quercetin showing inhibitory activity in the early stage of influenza infection provides a future therapeutic option to develop effective, safe and affordable natural products for the treatment and prophylaxis of [influenza A viruses] infections."28

Quercetin Is a Far Safer Alternative to Antiviral Drugs

Considering the powerful antiviral effects of quercetin, it would be sensible to make use of it first, before resorting to antiviral drugs such as Tamiflu. Not only has Tamiflu been shown to shorten the duration of flu symptoms by less than 17 hours,^29,30 it also does not reduce viral transmission and does not lower your risk of complications from the flu, such as pneumonia.^31,32

Scientists have also warned that the risks of Tamiflu far outweigh the benefits.³³ These risks include convulsions, brain infections, psychosis and other neuropsychiatric problems,³⁴ including mood swings, suicidal feelings, auditory hallucinations, memory deterioration and insomnia.³⁵

The drug is particularly risky for children, and more than half of all children taking Tamiflu suffer side effects from the drug.^36,37 Considering its risks, and its limited effectiveness, quercetin appears to be a far safer and more effective alternative. Studies have repeatedly found quercetin to be nontoxic, with no adverse side effects.

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