Men or women – who sweats more?

This debate has been going on for quite a while on who sweats more. Men have been winning this argument hands down, according to popular belief.

However, findings by scientists from the University of Wollongong in Australia and Mie Prefectural College of Nursing in Japan call into question this conventional belief.

The scientists tested this out on 36 men and 24 women. Participants completed two trials at 28°C and 36 per cent humidity. The trials performed over 12 months, involved light exercise and moderate exercise. Each trial started with seated rest for 20 minutes in a semi-recumbent position behind an electronically braked cycle ergometer. The participants then cycled at a constant speed for 45 minutes. The coastal temperate type temperatures and humidity was selected to ensure that the body was able to alleviate additional heat from exercising and also balance further rise in temperature by sweating. This was done to ensure that sweating was not dictated by environmental conditions but by physiological changes.

During the trial all participants had the same amount of body temperature changes regardless of gender.

Scientists question the conventional belief that women and men always respond differently to heat stress.

So far gender has been thought to influence sweating. But what the researchers found after examining skin blood flow and sweating responses in the participants in this study was that, smaller male and female participants with more surface area of skin per body kilogram of mass relied less on sweating and more dependent on heat loss through circulation.

The human body cools down in two main ways – by sweating and by increasing circulation to the skin’s surface. Body shape and size determines which of these two is relied upon for heat loss.

In this study, sweating was found to be independent of gender and dependent on body and surface area. This means that larger individuals will sweat more than smaller ones.

So the smaller you are the less likely you are going to sweat too much!

Source: Experimental Physiology