Short read
Minna Hannuksela of the University of Oulu and Samer Ellahham of the Cleveland Clinic wrote this review of the benefits and risks of sauna bathing for The American Journal of Medicine in 2001, volume 110, issue 2, pages 118 to 126. It predates every large cohort finding in this collection and remains cited in almost every current review.
The paper sets out contraindications, risk groups and interactions in a structured way. It names alcohol consumption in combination with sauna bathing as a central risk factor and treats unstable heart disease as a contraindication. It also covers how circulatory problems during a session are handled. As a review, it has no comparison group and reports no new figures of its own.
Published in 2001, it appeared before the large prospective cohort analyses. Its section on benefits has been overtaken by those later findings and no longer reflects the current evidence. The section on risks, by contrast, is still the reference that later reviews build on.
That split is how the paper should be read. It is a source for what is known about risks and exclusions, not for what sauna bathing may be associated with over the long term. It describes contraindications as the literature reported them and does not replace an individual medical assessment.