HeadsUp Newsletter - Vol 3.08: August 2006

Although most of us do not view perspiring as glamorous or pleasurable, it is our body’s natural way of cooling itself. With the rising temperatures of this summer, sweating is a true blessing as a deterrence of heat exhaustion, which in many cases leads to death. Did you know that whether we are aware of it or not, we are constantly sweating? The amount of sweat that we produce is dependent upon the temperature, as well as our emotional state and our physical activities. 

Perspiration exits the body through our sweat glands.  No wonder we’re always sweating -- on average, people have 2.6 million sweat glands distributed virtually all over their body. (There are no sweat glands on our lips, for instance, which is great news for all of our sweathearts – oh, we mean sweethearts.) Sweat glands are long, curved, hollow tube of cells. The curved portion is in our upper layer of skin called dermis and is the place where sweat is produced. The longer portion, called the duct, connects the gland to the outer surface of the skin. 

Now for the scientific part: Sweat glands can be grouped in two categories -- eccrine and apocrine. These glands differ in size. The apocrine glands are larger and found under the armpits and other private parts. Unlike the apocrine gland, the eccrine gland is small, active from birth, and produce perspiration free of protein and fatty acids. Eccrine glands are found all over the body, predominantly in the forehead, foot soles and on the palms of the hands.

In the event that sweat glands are stimulated, they produce a fluid similar to plasma, as it made of sodium and chloride and a low concentration of potassium. When exercising, or in hot temperatures, bodies produce a great amount of surface sweat. This is because the cells do not have enough time to reabsorb all of the sodium and chloride and the sweat overflows to the surface of the skin. In cool temperatures such as an office type environment, bodies tend to produce low levels of surface sweat. The cells reabsorb most of the sodium and chlorine from the fluid because there is plenty of time for re-absorption and thus, the sweat does not reach outside the skin.

The average amount of sweat produced by a person in hot climates is one liter per day; however in a desert or in the tropics, the sweat glands have the capacity to increase the rate they produce sweat to 2 to 3 liter per hour! As most of us know, when sweat evaporates from the surface of your skin, it removes the excess heat and cools your body temperature down.  If it weren’t for sweat, our bodies would shut down when they over heat.  So during this period of summer heat, drink lots of water and other fluids to give those sweat glands something to work with.  Now you know why we all sweat it every day!

To find out more about perspiring, log on to:
http://health.howstuffworks.com/sweat.htm