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Fresh air is usually nicer than stale, old air. And when one sweats out "old water" it gets replaced by the fresh water one intakes. I bet if we collected eno

by sova 5y ago

Fresh air is usually nicer than stale, old air. And when one sweats out "old water" it gets replaced by the fresh water one intakes. I bet if we collected enough sweat from sauna-goers and sprinters we would find things in it that you would rather have not in your body. Of course, I can already hear the chorus of indolence cheer "there's no science to support this claim" and yet there is also no science to deny it. The body is a gigantic circulatory system, out with the old, in with the new, I don't see why it would be any different with sweat.

qamblor 5y ago
Yes, our bodies have a specialized method for removing "old water" so it can be replaced by the fresh water one intakes. Urination. Your kidneys are working day and night to dump those "things in it that you would rather have not in your body" into your urine - not your sweat. Animals that sweat are a minority. The idea that there are toxins that can only be collected and removed and by your sweat glands, instead of your kidneys, should be treated with suspicion. I would also like to point out that even if one can detect the "presence of toxins" in sweat, however that is defined, it is not proof that sweat is an effective, efficient, or primary vector of their removal - it only proves that those toxins permeating your body happen to leach into your sweat. The rest of your body could either be removing 10000x as much of the same toxin every time you urinate compared to an hour of sweating, and the sweat could just have some insignificant dregs that happened to leach in - or there could be 100000x as much of the toxin remaining in your body no matter how much you sweat, either diffuse or concentrated in some non-sweat-gland-adjacent organs, making their removal through sweat completely ineffective.
MauranKilom 5y ago
Sweat does contain more than water and salt (urea for example). This is actually long established. But these substances are hardly toxins, even though the body has reasons excreting them. It's still unclear how you think the concentration of these things on the skin will be lower with sweat dripping down (and evaporating) than when surrounded by a hundred liters of bathwater though.
- sova 5y ago
  My reasoning was pretty simple: if you sit in a bath things can leave your body and also have ample opportunity to re-enter your body. Your comment on relative concentrations is helpful and makes me reconsider this notion. As a naive and simple-minded person I think of entering a bath whilst covered in mud. Yes, the relative concentrations of mud on my skin's surface and mud in the water would clearly suggest I am "clean," but will I really feel clean stepping out of a tub that looks more opaque than clear? Maybe it is no surprise I have such trouble understanding the world with my simple-minded approaches.

by sova 5y ago

qamblor 5y ago

Yes, our bodies have a specialized method for removing "old water" so it can be replaced by the fresh water one intakes. Urination. Your kidneys are working day and night to dump those "things in it that you would rather have not in your body" into your urine - not your sweat. Animals that sweat are a minority. The idea that there are toxins that can only be collected and removed and by your sweat glands, instead of your kidneys, should be treated with suspicion. I would also like to point out that even if one can detect the "presence of toxins" in sweat, however that is defined, it is not proof that sweat is an effective, efficient, or primary vector of their removal - it only proves that those toxins permeating your body happen to leach into your sweat. The rest of your body could either be removing 10000x as much of the same toxin every time you urinate compared to an hour of sweating, and the sweat could just have some insignificant dregs that happened to leach in - or there could be 100000x as much of the toxin remaining in your body no matter how much you sweat, either diffuse or concentrated in some non-sweat-gland-adjacent organs, making their removal through sweat completely ineffective.

MauranKilom 5y ago

Sweat does contain more than water and salt (urea for example). This is actually long established. But these substances are hardly toxins, even though the body has reasons excreting them. It's still unclear how you think the concentration of these things on the skin will be lower with sweat dripping down (and evaporating) than when surrounded by a hundred liters of bathwater though.

sova 5y ago
My reasoning was pretty simple: if you sit in a bath things can leave your body and also have ample opportunity to re-enter your body. Your comment on relative concentrations is helpful and makes me reconsider this notion. As a naive and simple-minded person I think of entering a bath whilst covered in mud. Yes, the relative concentrations of mud on my skin's surface and mud in the water would clearly suggest I am "clean," but will I really feel clean stepping out of a tub that looks more opaque than clear? Maybe it is no surprise I have such trouble understanding the world with my simple-minded approaches.