This looks like a very well done, peer reviewed study that was accepted for publication. That’s a great start. This means it’s a scientific FINDING, and needs 3 more things for it to be considered a scientific FACT. First, it needs to be replicated and confirmed by different methods; next, it needs to make sense within existing theories; and last, it has to withstand repeated efforts to disprove it.
Just a reminder that until these things are done you just can’t accept it as a scientific fact. This was just published November 20th, 2025 and has a long way to go in this process.
So, the statement in Canadian running: “A recent study from Cardiff Metropolitan University has shown that long-term passive heat immersion enhances oxygen consumption” is technically correct but not scientifically acceptable until all three of the steps above are met.
This is very misleading because for all we know, the next 9 studies find something very different, and the next 5 after that successfully disprove it.
Think about it, how many hundreds of claims like this have made the headlines, only to be disproved a few months or years later?
This is not a disparagement of the study itself: they did everything right!
