Thursday, April 26, 2007

Killing Germs

Did you see the TV programme last night (Wed 25th April) about Giant Hornets and bees in a Japanese mountain valley? I couldn't take my eyes away from the TV! As well as being a fascinating programme in its own right, it also emphasised very strongly one of the benefits of the far infrared saunas that we sell at www.theultimatesauna.co.uk

I have been well aware that using the far infrared sauna has been good for killing bacteria and germs in the body, but it has always been difficult to know exactly how effective this process is. This TV programme, although in a totally unrelated way, very graphically showed its power.
The theme of the programme was that the giant hornets are a threat to all bees in the area (as well as other creatures), but there was a fascinating twist to the tale.

2 beekeepers and their hives were shown, each based in a different area. One had imported European bees and one had local Japanese bees. The Giant Hornets were large enough and powerful enough to regard these honey bees are a favourite delicacy, but their challenge was finding them. Late in the summer a hornet scout discovered the European bees and stopped for a meal. The bees put up a strong challenge but could do nothing and a number were killed before the hornet flew off. He later returned with about 300 mates and staged a mass attack with a view to getting into the hive. The bees valiantly fought to protect it but within about 3 hours about 30,000 had been killed. The remaining bees had to admit defeat before abandoning the hive to the hornets, who then went inside and plundered the larvae.

Sometime later a hornet scout discovered the Japanese bee hive. However these bees acted differently to the Europeans. They didn't attack the hornet. They simply watched. They even allowed it into the hive and carried on watching. The hornet decided to grab one of the bees with a view to eating it but as soon as it did it was the signal for the honey bees to strike with a mass attack. We literally couldn't see the hornet for bees, and being inside the hive it couldn't easily escape. Soon the hornet was dead. However, it didn't die because the bees were able to do anything to it, because its shell was too tough for them. It died simply because the bees' core temperature was 2 degrees higher than the hornet's and according to the programme makers "the hornet was literally roasted alive". From just 2 degrees!

From our point of view not only do we obviously have more tolerance to varying degrees of temperature, perhaps because of our size, but also when we are in the far infrared sauna we control the temperature at a level which makes us feel wonderful. That small rise in temperature however, obviously gives any germs living too near the surface of our bodies "a lot more than a headache".

This brings it home to me very strongly why in the 3 years I have been using my far infared sauna I have never had a cold or flu. So once again we say, "At the first sign of the cold or flu jump into the far infrared sauna". For more details see www.theultimatesauna.co.uk Enjoy it and may you keep improving your health!