6 Important Things Your Sweat Is Trying To Tell You About Your Health

Sweating is something we all try to prevent, cover up, and mask until we head to the gym, where we actually work hard to lose buckets of it.

With all the different ways we try to make our sweat work around our lifestyle, it’s easy to miss the clear signs your perspiration is constantly trying to send you.

We already know that sweat is the human body’s natural cooling system, but what does that really mean for your health?

Here are 6 important things your sweat might be trying to tell you about your health:

1. You’re Pregnant: Pregnancy can make a woman’s endocrine system—a collection of hormone-producing glands—go haywire, causing you to start sweating out of nowhere. These hormonal changes can send false signals to your brain’s “thermostat” and tell it that your body needs to cool down immediately, even if you’re sitting right in front of the AC!
2. You’re Hitting Menopause: Even in the years leading up to menopause, about 85% of women experience intense hot flashes. Again, this occurs when your hormones are beginning to feel uncontrollable. Once your endocrine system thinks your body needs to cool down, you may be left feeling a lot sweatier than usual.
3. You’re Spreading Happiness…Or Fear: In a surprising experiment, 36 women were asked to smell sweat samples of 12 men who were either shown scary or happy videos. When the women were asked to smell the different sweat samples, they were far more likely to make a facial expression resembling fear after testing the first group’s sweat; most of the women smiled after smelling the second group’s sweat. In other words, the people around you can actually pick up on what you’re feeling just by the scent of your sweat!
4. You’re Stressed: As disgusting as it may sound, your sweat smells worse when you’re feeling stressed. So, if you’re greeted with an awful stench after doing a quick sniff check, really consider what’s been going on lately. Are you feeling extra pressure at work? Dealing with relationship problems? When we’re hot, our bodies produce sweat through the eccrine glands, which contain mostly water and salt. Meanwhile, sweat is produced through the apocrine glands when we’re stressed. These are only found in areas, like the armpit, and excrete a combination of fat and protein that mix with bacteria on your skin—hence the stench!  

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5. Your Blood Sugar Is Low: In general, your blood sugar should be between 70 and 100 milligrams per deciliter. When it dips too low, your body will send you a number of warning signs, such as excessive sweating or cold, clammy skin, especially around the back of your neck and hairline. In addition to sudden perspiration, watch out for dizziness, quickened heartbeat, slight nausea, and shakiness.
6. You May Have Lymphoma: Constant sweating can be a sign of lymphoma, or cancer of the lymph cells, but medical experts still don’t really know why this happens. Some believe the perspiration is actually a result of the body responding to a symptom of lymphoma, like a high fever. This can also be a side effect of a number of other serious health conditions, including gout, hyperthyroidism, and Parkinson's disease.

Have you ever noticed these different changes in your sweat? Tell us in the comments!

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