Should we stop using deodorant?
Sweating may be a warning sign of:
WE HAVE around 2.6 million sweat glands in our body and for the majority, our major concern is in preventing significant numbers of these glands from functioning nor mally, lest we stain our clothes or offend people around us.
We consider sweat embarrassing and spend millions a year tackling it with antiperspirants and deodorants.
But medical studies are revealing unexpected ways in which honest sweat is crucial for our health. Without it, for example, our bodies would become corrupted with toxic metals. Our skin would also be unable to heal wounds in a manner unique to humans.
It’s long been known that sweating is vital for regulating body temperature – and the consequences of that system failing can be fatal. As George Havenith, a professor of environmental physiology and ergonomics at Loughborough University, explains: “The only way the body has of cooling is by sweating and losing the heat energy by evaporating it off.
“If you don’t sweat, you can overheat within half an hour when exercising. If your body temperature goes above 40ºC you suffer heat exhaustion, even heatstroke, which can be fatal.’
There is a condition called anhidrosis which puts sufferers at a high risk of suffering attacks of heatstroke – which can cause lethal damage to the brain and internal organs – because their bodies cannot use sweat to evaporate heat from their skin.
This is rare, fortunately,
Diabetes can disrupt the sympathetic nervous system, which sends messages to sweat glands. Diabetes is also associated with obesity, which itself can cause excessive sweating.
Diabetes:
Rheumatoid arthritis:
This autoimmune disorder which affects the joints, causing inflammation, can also trigger sweating.
Clogged arteries mean the heart has to work harder to pump blood – the body sweats more to keep cool during the extra exertion.
Heart problems:
linked to damage to the sweat glands caused by injury or (also rare) autoimmune conditions. .
The potential dangers of trying to reduce sweating were shown in a recent review of evidence by Canadian investigators.
Everyone has some level of toxic metals accumulating in their bodies, thanks to the fact that arsenic, cadmium, lead, and mercury are common in our environment and in food.
We consume them in shellfish, grains, and brassicas such as broccoli, cabbage and cauliflower, which absorb them from their surroundings, and particularly from tobacco, which “avidly accumulates cadmium and lead from soil”, according to the review published in the Journal of Environmental and Public Health.
All are considered carcinogenic, as well as being harmful to our nervous systems, hearts, brains and kidneys.
Overactive thyroid:
This occurs when the thyroid gland in the neck produces too much thyroid hormone. Excess levels can speed up the metabolism, which can trigger excess sweating as well as unexplained weight loss, anxiety and hyperactivity.
Excess sweating can be linked to cancers, such as non-Hodgkin lymphoma, Hodgkin lymphoma, leukaemia, bone cancer and liver cancer. It may be due to the body fighting the cancer, says Cancer Research UK.
Cancer:
But we can literally sweat them out – if we exercise vigorously or get hot, the review shows that we can excrete arsenic, cadmium and mercury “in appreciable quantities”.
More clinical trials are needed, but the Canadian review suggests sweating may be crucial for cleaning the body of these toxins. US researchers believe perspiration could offer a revolutionary way of helping wounds to heal.
Our skin is rich with millions of “eccrine” sweat glands all over the body that help it cool down. These glands are unique to humans and seem to be “one of the body’s most powerful secret weapons in healing”, claims a study from the University of Michigan.
Published in 2012, it found that these same glands played a key role in providing stem cells for healing flesh wounds – such as scrapes, burns and ulcers.
It was previously thought that open wounds healed by being fed new skin cells from hair follicles and from intact skin at the edge of the wound.
But the new research shows that cells emerge from beneath the wound – and our eccrine sweat glands store reservoirs of adult stem cells that can quickly turn themselves into fresh skin in a matter of hours.
“It may be surprising that it’s taken until now to discover the sweat glands’ vital role in wound repair,” says lead researcher Laure Rittie, a professor of dermatology. “Eccrine sweat glands are under-studied. They are unique to humans.”
Another recent finding suggests that using antiperspirant might make body odour worse. This may make actress Cameron Diaz happy – earlier this year she revealed she hasn’t worn any for 20 years: “Antiperspirant is bad for you. Let it go and just trim your armpit hair so it doesn’t hold on to the scent. You’re stinky because you use antiperspirant.”
Diaz may have a point. – Daily Mail