Why Do We Sweat Salt?
by Danny
A couple of weeks ago, I had basketball practice and as always I was sweating like crazy. Towards the end of the practice, some of the sweat got into my eyes and that was not too pleasant. It stung a bunch because of the salt in my sweat. Well, on my ride home from practice, I started to wonder, why do people sweat salt and where does it come from?
Basically sweat, also called perspiration, is the body’s way of cooling itself. An average human has 2.6 million sweat glands in their entire body according to this article. The amount of humidity in an area around you can determine how much you sweat. You may also notice that sweat can appear when you are scared or nervous, because sweating can be a response to your emotional state.
Well, after looking around from website to website I finally found one that explains the answer to my question the best. This website shows that the amount of salt in your body is from all the sodium that you intake daily. Containing sodium in our bodies and replacing them when they leave the body is one of the extraordinary talents of the human body. This is why when we sweat really hard like in competitive sporting events or long distance activities, we should take energy drinks such as Gatorade, Powerade, Propel, etc. It may appear that salt and sodium are the same thing, however, they are different in a number of ways. Well, back to the first website, salt is made up of sodium and chloride. Just a way to check the difference is to look at FDA labels on all your food and drink products.
What are some other ways that we can replenish sodium lost when we sweat or cry? Why do you think it is important to put deodorant under our arms before we work out or do physical activity?
February 14th, 2008 at 9:26 pm
I think that it is very necessary to use deodorant when you are going to partake in a rigorous activity. Since you can also sweat when you are nervous, I think that it is important to use an antiperspirant deodorant to avoid any embarassing sweat marks. To add on to this, I found a website that explains why antiperspirants work: http://health.howstuffworks.com/question627.htm
Also, if you sweat a lot, it is normally advised that you use an antiperspirant deodorant to not only block the smell but eliminate some of the sweating. Solid antiperspirants consist of aluminum chloride, aluminum chlorohydrate, aluminum zirconium tricholorohydrex glycine, aluminum hydroxybromide, and aluminum chlorohydrate. These ions of aluminum go into cells that are lined along the eccrine gland ducts(which produce most of the body’s sweat). Water goes into the cell along with the aluminums causing the cells to swell which shuts the ducts so that sweat is unable to leave.
February 14th, 2008 at 9:34 pm
As we all probably know, too much salt can harm your body. According to this website that I found, the average person gets way too much of it.
Too much salt can cause HIGH BLOOD PRESSURE. Around 1/3 of adults have it and most are not even aware that they are eating way too much salt. This can lead to other problems in the body and even give someone a stroke.
It appears in many foods and sometimes camouflages itself; it can be in bread, cereal, and biscuits. I never really even thought about it until now. We are supposed to only function an a teaspoon a day, but lets get a reality check, we all eat more than that.
With all of the salt we eat in processed foods, I guess it’s a good thing that we sweat some of it off.
To get some more FUN FACTS on salt, click here and stay healthy!
http://www.chewonthis.org.uk/fat_salt_sugar/salt_home.htm
February 14th, 2008 at 10:04 pm
Why do we only have to put deodorant on our underarm area? Why don’t we have to put it everywhere?
February 14th, 2008 at 10:50 pm
SO, good post Danny, and good effort. More importantly, I found the website you used to be very interesting, and if anyone is commenting on this post without reading that website, I HIGHLY RECOMMEND YOU DO. I checked out how the guy was saying that you need to consume one gram of sodium an hour, as well as having a good water intake for good hydration. I found it helpfull how he gave the advice to watch how much water you drink, and make sure you’re getting some of both, you know, water and sodium. I usually try to drink close to a 4, 32 oz. cups of water every 45 minutes to an hour when I get home for two hours, so I stay close to hydrated. So, I found it a bit laughable when he said drinking 2.18 liters of Gatorade an hour was impractical. Grant it, he was talking about triathletes who run the Hawaii Ironman race, not football lineman (next to that, lineman in general, especially offensive, aren’t as notorious for cramping an what not) . However, I’ve also made the connection to the Pickle Juice they tell athletes to drink and what this article says about Hyponatremia. Perhaps that’s why those few single individuals on football team always get those cramps. If there’s not enough sodium, then salty pickle juice takes care of the problem quickly (along with hydration) Next to that, being hydrated is so incredibly advantageous, it just makes sense to make sure you’re getting enough. It also makes sense that it’s such a valuble resource, because of the advantages a hydrated person has over a dehydrated or unadequately hydrated guy.
Conservationists are dead on when they tell us to conserve this water, and if athletes got in on it, just imagine the results. I mean, Allen Iverson starts wearing a sleve, and it instantly becomes the trend, or Lattrell Sprewell gets these cool new rims that spin when the car stops moving, and the next thing the world is doing is putting sprewells on their rims. Just imagine Peyton Manning pushing for water conservation, and how instead of washing your car and wasting water, put it to good use by going out and being active so you actually are thirsty. Look at this website and see how us nasty water hogging Georgians compare to the rest of the nation in how much water we use. Also, look at the whole website, not just that one page I’m giving the link to.
http://ga.water.usgs.gov/edu/wups.html
Also, just look around. There are tons of websites out there that talk about the benefits of being hydrated and all that jazz. It’s really, justifiably a very, very valuble resource.
Good job Danny.
February 18th, 2008 at 4:19 pm
I found out that a lot of people think antiperspirant and deodorant are the same thing, but they are not.
“Antiperspirants work by clogging, closing, or blocking the pores with powerful astringents such as aluminum salts so that they can’t release sweat. (Note that aluminum can accumulate in the brain.) Deodorants work by neutralizing the smell of the sweat and by antiseptic action against bacteria. Deodorants are preferable because they don’t interfere with sweating, a natural cooling process.”
Source: http://www.care2.com/greenliving/deodorant-or-antiperspirants.html
February 25th, 2008 at 10:18 pm
Great post Danny! One day during middle school football, I dont know why, but the coach made us try to stand on our heads. Like you, some sweat got in my eyes and burned. When I saw your post I checked out sweating saltand I found this article
http://sportsmedicine.about.com/od/hydrationandfluid/a/Sodium_Salt.htm.
This article tells how an athlete will run the risk of hyponatremia or a low concentration of sodium in the blood, if said athlete does nget enough sodiun in their diet.
March 3rd, 2008 at 8:43 pm
A way to replenish salt lost, is by drinking gatorade. Gatordade contains 110 mg of sodium. I have heard that you should not drink Gatordade if you are not physically active. This website: http://www.gatorade.com/frequently_asked_questions/ shows that it is ok to drink Gatorade.
I think it is important to put deodorant on before we work out because first of all, nobody wants to smell sweaty! But I have a question, will deordorant reduce the amount of salt lost in working out?
March 6th, 2008 at 9:51 pm
Thanks amanda! i really didnt know the difference between deoderant and antiperperats until i read your comment! I was surprised and shocked to see that from antiperperants aluminum can be transferred to the brain. Also when you think about it your body needs to sweat in order to maintain body heat. If you try to keep that in its like putting a cork in a shaken coke bottle. Imagine your whole face being clogged by the antiperperants. Gross right? Thats how your underarms feel! Amanda’s comment also prompted me to do some research so i found this website on how antiperperants are connected to Alzheimers and if it is really true. We learned about the subject about how to determine pseudoscience and rumors from science. It is a similar subject from when we talked about the connection between vaccines and autism. This article explains what is true and the background about the link between Alzheimers and antiperperants.
http://www.sweatsolutions.org/sweatsolutions/Article.asp?ArticleCode=66105477&EditionCode=88906227
March 9th, 2008 at 9:01 pm
In response to your question Miss Baker, deodorant and antiperspirants are applied to the armpits because these are the warmest areas on our bodies, therefore when we sweat the sweat glands in our armpits provide quite a bit of moisture. The hair in our underarms add odor to the sweat and together they aren’t a very good pair. The deodorants we use strive to kill bacteria that live on our armpit hairs, reduce the moisture and cover up the unpleasant smell we get when we workout. I did receive my information from wikipedia but some of the references at the bottom of the site i noticed are very reliable and interesting to look at such as how its made:deodorants and antiperspirants.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deodorant
Have fun and good post Danny!
March 9th, 2008 at 9:36 pm
I found a website on sweating its from CNN check it out. http://www.cnn.com/HEALTH/library/DS/00561.html also I found a cool website on why we sweat salt.
http://www.wisegeek.com/why-do-we-sweat.htm
This website is also very neat, http://www.answers.com/topic/sweat-gland?cat=health. A apocrine gland is a multicellular gland, such as a mammary gland or an axillary sweat gland, that extrudes part of the cytoplasm with the secretory product. These sweat glands are found in mammals and as it says it is multicellular like a mammory gland.