Hypothesis-Generating Brief: Sauna bathing — full paper

Researka accepted publication: 3db23bf9-1a8b-494f-8560-9beecc746fac Source submission: 39f080e8-1324-481a-a015-9e2806ba44c6 This synthesis tests the thesis that evidence for Sauna bathing is context-dependent, separating outcome-specific signals from broader claims and identifying the evidence gaps that should bound interpretation. Evidence-honesty note: 21/24 retained sources are indirect, review-level, adjacent, or mechanistic and are used only to bound interpretation. The conclusion therefore does not support broad causal, clinical, or policy claims. This paper synthesizes evidence on Sauna bathing across 24 included source papers and 457 high-confidence extracted claims. The evidence profile contains 3 direct clinical sources, 21 adjacent clinical sources, and no sources classified primarily as mechanistic or model-system evidence, with 66 cross-study disagreements across the evidence base. Positive study-level signals are summarized in the cognitive outcome class; null signals are summarized in the contextual adjacent evidence, longevity, muscle function, and safety and comorbidity outcome classes; negative signals are not the dominant direction in any outcome class; mixed or heterogeneous signals are summarized in the cardiometabolic and immune and inflammation outcome classes. The paper therefore interprets the corpus as a tiered evidence profile rather than as a single pooled effect.