You know the drill, the teacher calls your name and asks you to stand up in front of the whole class then it starts -your palms get sticky, your underarms feel sodden and your shirt feels plastered to your back. You're sweating buckets because of your nervousness, it's just the pits! But why does your body sweat and is all sweating the same?
Perspiration, the polite word for sweat, happens when your body needs to cool itself and it doesn't matter if the excessive body heat comes from the strenuous use of your muscles, a steamy summer day or from nervous over stimulation.
The average person has about 2.6 million sweat glands in their skin! There are two types of sweat glands.Eccrine glands are the most numerous and are found all over your body and are already active by the time you're born.And Apocrine glands are larger and found mostly in the armpits (axilla) and these are the ones that become active at puberty. The sweat from these glands contains proteins and fatty acids. The sweat itself doesn't have any odor but when the bacteria on your skin and underarm hair metabolize the fatty acids and protein they produce the telltale armpit odor.
A person not adapted to a hot climate makes about 1 liter of sweat per hour, but a person who lives in that same climate can produce up to 2-3 liters of sweat per hour and the body can adapt to its new environment in about 6 weeks.We've talked about sweating being the way the body to cools itself but do you understand how this works? Heat of vaporization is a principal of physics that says that it takes a certain amount of heat to turn liquid into a vapor. When the sweat evaporates from your skin it cools you.
When you sweat you also lose other minerals from your body. Salt, Chloride and Potassium are all vital to the proper function of your heart and other muscles, your kidneys and your circulation. This is why when you've been sweating your skin has a salty taste to it. If you sweat a lot in hot weather or are visiting a hot climate it is important that you drink a lot of fluids to stay hydrated. Sports drinks have additional minerals to help replace those lost and are a good idea for those doing very strenuous exercise.
So now you know that even thought sweating it may seem like the pits it's really pretty cool!
Author Resource:-
Children are naturally curious and at Science With Me we want to encourage them to learn all the science they can in a fun and exciting way on our science for kids website.
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