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Fitness & Health

09th Jun 2016

This is the reason why your sweaty mate sweats so much

Carl Kinsella

We all have at least one friend who is totally unable to cope with the warm weather.

Actually, considering we’re living in Britain – we’ve all got at least 20 friends who suffer from regular sunburn, sunstroke and, of course, chronic sweating.

Apparently, the reason behind our over-active sweat glands, as explained by Dr Laure Rittié is all about where we grew up:

“Everyone is born with virtually the same number of sweat glands, but sweat glands mature during the first two years of life. Not all sweat glands become able to produce sweat (it depends on the need during that time).

So people who grew up in warm climates tend to have more active sweat glands than people who grew up in a climate-controlled environment or in cold climates.”

sweat

As for why British people might be particularly sweaty, Rittié would seem to suggest that this is because our sweat-glands aren’t well-trained for heat, as cold weather “prevents us from acclimating to hot temperatures.”

Funnily enough, this would seem to suggest that the longer we spend in the warm weather during adulthood the less warm we’ll feel – but the longer we spent in warm weather during the first two years of life causes us to develop more active sweat glands.

Topics:

Summer