Welding goes after – 15 surprising facts about sweating

Water march! This is the motto of this heat wave. Not only because we fill up the children’s planking pool with the garden hose or save ourselves to cool down. Our body also runs to production records. A good ten liters of sweat flow on hot days in streams from the approximately three million sweat glands of our body. Even if it is uncomfortable for many, the liquid is more important than you think. 15 facts about this very special body juice.

The rest are sodium chloride – i.e. table salt, which explains the salty taste, potassium and fats, lactic acid, ammonia and also urea.

In fact, sweat in itself is rather odorless. The penetrating Odeur only appears after a while. When bacteria begin to reduce the long -chain fatty acids in sweat, buttery acid and anthroric acid, which smell acid or cheese. And why is it particularly bad under the armpit? This is also due to the fact that bacteria feel particularly comfortable in a warm and maybe even hairy environment. Microbes from the group of diphteroids ensure the often stinging-biting smell in men, while the rather acidic-smelling female sweat is caused by micrococci.

The eckrine glands make up about 80 percent of the sweat glands on the body and primarily serve the thermoregulation of the body. They produce particularly aqueous sweat and are unevenly distributed over the entire body.

The large apocrine sweat glands, on the other hand, shape the typical smell of an individual through pheromon -like fragrances. They occur in the armpits, around the nipples and navel, in the genital region and in the ear canal. In contrast to the eckine, they turn into a fatty, cloudy secretion into the funnel -shaped openings of the hair follicles. Since this sweat has a higher pH, it offers bacteria significantly better Müffel conditions.

To judge the sweat stains on some T-shirts, one could think that, but most of the sweat glands are sitting on our soles of the feet (370 per square centimeter) and the palms (360 per square centimeter). In contrast, with 120 to 160 welding nozzles there are only half as many in the armpit.

When sweat evaporates on the skin, energy is removed from the environment. We then feel this as so -called “evaporation cold”. In order to maintain our core temperature of 37 degrees Celsius, we are already steaming about half a liter of fluid in “normal operation” on significantly less warm days without much movement. If we are outside in brooding heat or do a lot of sport, the cooling quantity can quickly make multiple times to protect ourselves from overheating.
In nature, this type of temperature regulation is quite unique: man is one of the few mammals that sweat to cool off.

The fact that men sweat more on average than women is correct, but is still not a question of gender. On the one hand, it could be because many men have a significantly higher muscle mass than women. Finally, muscles produce warmth in movement and sport. However, it may also have to be done with the size: Australian scientists came to the conclusion in 2017 with 36 men and 24 women that smaller people, because they have more surface per kilogram of muscle mass, could better cool down through the blood circulation under the skin surface. Larger people would have to sweat more for the same effect.

Welding glands have different functions than the temperature regulation: they are also involved in the training of the so -called antibacterial hydrolipide film of the skin. Because the sweat of the eckrine glands with a pH of about 4.5 is rather acidic, it supports the acid protection jacket of the skin. Since a few metabolic products and electrolytes are also excreted through sweat, sweat glands can also take over a small part of the detoxification that is otherwise carried out via the kidneys.

In sports you actually not only train endurance, but also your body’s “air conditioning”. Athletes sweat more effectively: they steam the right amount at the right time.

Unfortunately, that’s true. Many affected people but more than 50 milliliters of sweat per minute and foot. But that’s not all: the warm, humid milieu also favors diseases such as itchy foot mushroom or painful warts.

Scientists from State University of New York have shown that people who had smelled fear sweat from other people also became restless. The evaporation activated the Amygdala, the fear center in the brain.

If children become teenagers, their body odor often changes blatantly. The reason: Only with in teen age do the apocrine sweat glands develop fully. In addition, research -like hormone -like substances in the teen welding identified, which could explain the nasal sumps of many parents in a melange of urine, musk and sandalwood.

One of the tasks of the regulatory center in the brain is to set the body core temperature throughout 37 degrees. If the external and inner temperature rises, special warmer receptors report this information to the hypothalamus. As soon as an internal threshold is exceeded, the too much heat must be removed. Then the hypothalamus indicates the sweat glands to open their hatches, so to speak.

Feelings such as stress can also stimulate sweat production: moist hands before the examination provides this again and again.

An estimated one and a half million people in Germany sweat unusually strong even on well -tempered days. They suffer from so -called hyperhidrosis. Emotional stress, physical exertion, alcohol and coffee as well as certain medications increase the risk of sweating attacks. Sometimes physical illnesses are also triggered.

Among other things, these people can be helped with botox. The nerve poison prevents the sweat stimulus from being forwarded. However, the effect of the injection lasts only a few months. Electricity treatment on hands, feet or face can also stimulate the nerve endings so that they no longer forward the sweat signal. If nothing helps, the doctor can also vacuum the glands in the armpits.

Deos cover the smell with its own fragrances and have an inhibiting of bacteria. This is how they stop smells that are caused by the bacterial decomposition process of the sweat. Antipirants, on the other hand, clog the glands, for example, with aluminum salts and thereby reduce the quantity of sweat by around 20 to 60 percent.

It may be refreshing to drink ice cold on the brooding and hot day. This does not shut down sweat production. Rather, the body receives the signal: here it is cold-let the heat machine start up. The cold drink thus leads to reactive blood flow to the stomach. The result is a paradoxical transpiration. So better, you drink Lauwarmes.

Working: Constanze Löffler