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Abstract
The Effect of Herbal Steam Bath in Cloth Tents on Vital Signs and Body Weight in
Healthy Volunteers
, †
Tassanee Paraput* **, Thapthep Thippayacharoentam*, Cherdchai Nopmaneejumruslers ,
‡ , §
Luecha Boontaweekul , Pravit Akarasereenont* , Tawee Laohapand*
† ‡
*Center of Applied Thai Traditional Medicine, Office for Research and Development, Department of
§
Physiology and Department of Pharmacology, Faculty of Medicine Siriraj Hospital, Mahidol Univer-
sity, Bangkok.
**Corresponding author: tuss.pa@gmail.com
Herbal steam bath is a treatment that has been used in Thai traditional medicine for a long
time. At present, it is widely used for health promotion both in rooms like sauna or in cloth tents.
The aim of this study is to investigate the effect of herbal steam bath in cloth tents on vital signs
and body weight in healthy volunteers using the one group pretest-posttest design. The results of
this study can be used to set guidelines for the safe method of herbal steam bath. Participants in
the study were 130 healthy volunteers who visited the Ayurved Clinic of Applied Thai Traditional
Medicine, Siriraj Hospital. All participants took two 15-minute herbal steam baths. The vital
signs were recorded before and after each round of herbal steam bath, and the body weight was
recorded before and after the treatment.
There was a statistically and clinically significant increase in body temperature, heart rate,
and respiratory rate after treatment (p<0.001). Systolic blood pressure, diastolic blood pressure
and body weight decreased with statistical significance (p<0.001), but not clinical significance.
All subjects did not have any complications. However, the procedure should be closely observed
by the practitioners due to the decrease in blood pressure. Moreover, the effect of herbal steam
bath on blood pressure of hypertensive patients should be further investigated.

Key words: Herbal steam bath, steam bath in cloth tent, vital signs, body weight