Things you’ll want to know about sweat, and a few you don’t…
Sweat is just a fact of life, and a very important physical function, as sweat helps to regulate your internal temperature to avoid overheating.
Here are some interesting things you might want to know about sweat:
- Men do it more — According to some studies, men tend to sweat as much as 40% more than women.
- Micronesians drink sweat –– Some Micronesian cultures revere sweat as the “essence” of a warrior. It is a great honor to drink the sweat of a fellow warrior.
- Your yearly sweating can fill three SUV gas tanks — According to studies, the average human being tends to sweat almost 280 gallons per year. That’s enough to fill the gas tanks of three SUVs.
- Your feet sweat more than the rest of your body –– Did you know that your feet have more than 250,000 sweat glands built into them? Thankfully, the sweat of your feet doesn’t smell!
- Sweat doesn’t smell –– Sweat is basically just water with sodium and a few other minerals in it. Sweat is completely odorless, and the foul smell comes from the bacteria that can populate thanks to the sweat that fills your armpits, your underwear, and your shoes.
- Cows sweat from their noses –– Farmers have to spray cow’s noses just to keep them cool in the summer!
- Hippos sweat red — While most of us sweat clear liquid, a hippo’s sweat is actually red. The red pigment actually kills off the bacteria growing on the hippo’s skin, and acts as an extra layer of protection against the sun.
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- Pigs don’t sweat much –– We’ve all heard the expression “sweating like a pig”, but the truth is that pigs don’t sweat much. This is the reason that pigs roll around in mud, as it’s the only way for them to effectively cool down when the sun is high and hot.
- People in the olden days liked the smell of sweat –– Well, perhaps they didn’t like the smell of sweat (odorless, remember), but they liked the smell of a person sans perfumes. Napoelon told his wife Josephine not to bathe so he could smell her “au naturel”. Ew!
- Most people didn’t wash off the sweat — King Louis XII took a grand total of two baths per year, meaning he was only sweat-free twice a year. The rest of the time, he covered up with perfumes and fragrances. Imagine what he must have smelled like!
- Our backs have few sweat glands — In fact, sweat glands are the least concentrated on our backs–though somehow we still sweat A LOT from our backs on those hot days.
- Your sweat glands number in the millions — It turns out that 2.6 million is the total number of sweat glands covering your body.
- Sweat stains aren’t caused by sweat — Those yellow stains aren’t the fault of your sweat glands, but your apocrine glands. The apocrine glands secrete fatty acids and proteins, which, combined with sweat, make the yellow stains.
- Eating makes you sweat –– When you eat, your body processes the food in order to produce energy. The digestion process increases your body temperature, so your body is forced to sweat in order to cool down.
- Some sweat smells better –– It turns out there is a good reason to be a vegetarian after all: your sweat doesn’t stink quite as much! And a good antiperspirant like this one will solve that issue altogether.
