Sweating Myths and Legends ? Who hasn’t encountered the telltale summer spots under their arms or the dark “collars” of their T-shirts. For some, sweat is unacceptable, a violation of etiquette, unhygienic. Others look at it with satisfaction, as a goal – to sweat from the effort. But everyone wants to control it and many people suffer from misconceptions about it.
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What is sweating, does it mean effective training and how to manage it?
It is time to unravel the myths and controversies. Sweat is a clear liquid with a specific odor that is secreted by the sweat glands on the skin. They are about 2.5 million in the human body and the total area of their outlet ducts is 90 square centimeters on average. Which means that they are enough in number to be scattered and spread on the skin of the whole body. They pump sweat through weak contractions of their smooth muscles.
Most glands are of the so-called eccrine type. They secrete a predominant water content, below 2% impurities. However, there is another type of sweat glands – apocrine type. They are activated during puberty. They are concentrated in the armpits and pubic areas. Their secretion is only 90% water. The rest are salts, dyes, fats – a combined secretion that is associated with sexual attraction.
These glands are a kind of transitional type between sweat and sebaceous glands, but unlike both types they have no protective function for the body, nor do they expel dead fat cells, but are activated periodically. They are associated with sexual attraction (pheromones). The very source of sweat, labeled “glands,” already gives us direction for the next conclusion.
Sweat is not water, but a secret?
Exactly. A secretory system directly connected to the blood plasma and passing through the skin cannot be expected to have the character of a dry matter. Sweat does contain 98-99% water, but this is not its key ingredient. Sweat also contains urea. Urea is a specific metabolite, a residue of protein metabolism. It is most often converted by ammonia, which is toxic to cells (and by other substances such as carbon dioxide and aspartate).
Excess nitrogen is processed and disposed of through harmless urea. It is urea that causes the specific smell of sweat.
Sweat also contains lactate. This metabolite of lactic acid is well known to us and in fact it indirectly shows the link between sweating and sports. During active sports, a lot of lactate is released, part of which the body fails to process immediately and include in a new energy cycle. Some of this lactate leaves the body with sweat during sports. Sweat is rich in minerals and salts.
Most often these are metal salts. Salt is one of its most common ingredients, and with it – s
odium and chlorine. Besides them, copper, potassium, magnesium, calcium, chromium, iron, zinc and many others are found in sweat. And not only.
Sweat functions
Sweat plays two key functions in the body (excluding pheromones). It is a secretory system and a system for regulating body temperature. As a secretory system, sweat has one radical advantage: instant, fast and direct action.
This can be a key moment in intoxication, disorders of homeostasis and so on. Adding to the bill the fact that the dimensions of this excretory system are not small – up to 4 liters per hour, it becomes clear that sweat, although poorly used as an excretory system, is not negligible.
Sweat as a heat exchange and heat transfer system is key for the body; evaporating one liter of sweat removes 585 kilocalories from the body. That’s too much; represents about 20% of the body’s daily heat production (and since sweating is mainly in mammals, most of this heat is needed to maintain a constant body temperature). During heavy physical work, the amount released can reach 2 liters per hour for 3-4 consecutive hours.
What other processes are associated with sweating?
With sweat we definitely have a loss of two main things: water and energy. And while energy loss can be a goal – to keep the body from overheating, water loss is something that should be actively considered when sweating. Sweat is a mechanism of thermoregulation, and thermoregulation, as we know, is a function of the hypothalamus.
Respectively, sweating is under the regulation of the hypothalamus, which in turn is activated under stress, ie. and stress can affect sweating. Sweating and sweat glands are under nervous regulation.
Excessive sweating can indicate both nervous and hormonal disorders. Too little sweating is a direct danger because it speaks of poor heat transfer and threatens the body with heat stroke. It can also be due to nervous and hormonal disorders, as well as skin diseases and dehydration. Of the two conditions, too little sweating can be more disturbing.
Since sweating is a “prelude” to evaporation, it depends on another factor, this time in the middle. This is the atmospheric humidity. The efficiency of sweating and hence heat dissipation is greater the warmer and drier the climate. The most dangerous for overheating and heat stroke is the warm and humid climate, as moisture-saturated air is difficult to absorb vapors.
Sweating: what tells us and what doesn’t?
We know a number of common claims about sweating. Let’s mention some of them. Sweating Myths and Legends?
Sweating speaks of an effective anabolic process of proteins in the body
No. It is true that urea is a protein residue in metabolism, but its presence can indicate a number of processes, including metabolic or organ problems, and a certain concentration is normal. In addition, its presence does not say when, how or how fast the process went. A conclusion on this basis alone would be hasty.
Sweating speaks of a job well done in training
The increased catabolic processes and heat produced could find a “way out” through sweat, but its presence does not guarantee anything; Sweating and the need for sweat of different people are different and training is reflected in different ways. Many people sweat a lot even during ineffective training, some of them grow / fall without sweating too much.
Sweating means melting fat
Doesn’t mean. None of the fat metabolites are excreted in sweat. However, sweat may contain evidence: lactate. Lactate concentration increases in the blood at a time when muscle cells and tissues are no longer able to provide the necessary energy through respiration. Because fat burning is a process of energy production through cellular respiration, lactate can be considered to occur when this capacity is exceeded.
For this purpose, however, we must be sure that the “burning” in the cell was in the fat phase. It is more possible that this is a normal anaerobic cycle in the so-called. “oxygen credit” – subsequently simply lactate is oxidized. Lactate is by far not the most common ingredient in sweat, and even a very high concentration of lactate is not a factor in activating sweating.
On the other hand, there is little lactate in the body under any conditions. That is, sweating may be accompanied by fat burning, but there is no guarantee of this.
Sweating upsets the balance of salts
Yes, hypothetically. The problem is the fact that with sweat you also release salt, which you then compensate by drinking clean water. Indeed, the salt is in a very low concentration, about 1/1000 or a little more than the water weight. So the danger is not so strong and generally applies mainly to extremely intense training or excessive sweating.
However, in such cases, consider salt intake, such as a liter of sweat (as much as you can usually spend per hour of cardio training) and try to provide an extra gram of salt.
The main functions of sweating are two: thermoregulation and separation. Sweating depends on the state of the nervous system, body temperature, hormonal balance. It is a natural process by which you cannot judge the quality of the work done, but it is good to monitor and manage because it can disrupt homeostasis and frustrate your efforts or even create a health hazard.
Sweating Myths and Legends?
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Sweating Myths and Legends
