Sweating is activated by the sympathetic nervous system, which is responsible for the the fight-or-flight response that kicks in when we are threatened. Sweating is pretty important as it cools us down by evaporation.
Up to half of the sweat glands in our skin are found in our hands, so it’s no wonder that sweaty palms is such a common thing. I’m not sure exactly why so many would be in our hands, but my guess is that it’s because the hands and feet are hairless. If the rest of our body was quite hairy (as it would have been a few million years back when we looked like apes) I think evaporation would be more efficient on the hairless bits. That wouldn’t explain why armpits are such a sweaty area though, as these are usually pretty hairy!
Yeah. Not sure why the hands and feet would have a higher concentration of these glands. If we make a big extrapolation back to when we may have used our hands and feet to walk, then they were hairless, like Aimee says, and it makes sense we’d sweat there (though that makes it more difficult to hold onto things :)) That may have stuck.
Why they sweat first (which was your question) is of course related to that.
There may be a connection between sweat and blood supply – don’t know. You’d want pheromones – hormones we use to signal things to each other – to be in warm areas of the body so that they evaporate more quickly. But as far as I know pheromones are not secreted from hands and feet, so that theory’s no good.
To test this we’d need a thermal imaging camera, a camera that can pick up sweat, a willing volunteer, and something scary.
Yes, there are lots of sweat glands on our hands and feet. Some people sweat a lot more than other people – this is called hyperhydrosis and this happens because the sympathetic nervous system is over active. This problem is inherited.
Amazingly one of the treatments for hyperhydrosis is botox injections – the same injections that celebrities use to get rid of wrinkles. The toxin in the botox blocks the chemical transmitter that causes the sweat glands to do their thing! For the record though, I don’t recommend getting botox for wrinkles or sweating!
Actually, that’s not where I sweat first. It’s true. The back of my neck is the first place I start sweating. I’m a little bit different to most people. I promise that I am human though!
In our hands and feet are where most sweat glands are, (ok in everyone else except people like me), so I guess if the body suddenly needed to cool down quickly, sweating is triggered in our hands and feet. These are areas that are usually not covered by hair so evaporation of sweat can happen pretty quickly cooling the body.
We have glands that put out oils and sweat on our skin. It just happens that there are more of these glands on our fingers, hands, and feet.
0
Sweating is activated by the sympathetic nervous system, which is responsible for the the fight-or-flight response that kicks in when we are threatened. Sweating is pretty important as it cools us down by evaporation.
Up to half of the sweat glands in our skin are found in our hands, so it’s no wonder that sweaty palms is such a common thing. I’m not sure exactly why so many would be in our hands, but my guess is that it’s because the hands and feet are hairless. If the rest of our body was quite hairy (as it would have been a few million years back when we looked like apes) I think evaporation would be more efficient on the hairless bits. That wouldn’t explain why armpits are such a sweaty area though, as these are usually pretty hairy!
1
Yeah. Not sure why the hands and feet would have a higher concentration of these glands. If we make a big extrapolation back to when we may have used our hands and feet to walk, then they were hairless, like Aimee says, and it makes sense we’d sweat there (though that makes it more difficult to hold onto things :)) That may have stuck.
Why they sweat first (which was your question) is of course related to that.
There may be a connection between sweat and blood supply – don’t know. You’d want pheromones – hormones we use to signal things to each other – to be in warm areas of the body so that they evaporate more quickly. But as far as I know pheromones are not secreted from hands and feet, so that theory’s no good.
To test this we’d need a thermal imaging camera, a camera that can pick up sweat, a willing volunteer, and something scary.
0
Yes, there are lots of sweat glands on our hands and feet. Some people sweat a lot more than other people – this is called hyperhydrosis and this happens because the sympathetic nervous system is over active. This problem is inherited.
Amazingly one of the treatments for hyperhydrosis is botox injections – the same injections that celebrities use to get rid of wrinkles. The toxin in the botox blocks the chemical transmitter that causes the sweat glands to do their thing! For the record though, I don’t recommend getting botox for wrinkles or sweating!
0
Actually, that’s not where I sweat first. It’s true. The back of my neck is the first place I start sweating. I’m a little bit different to most people. I promise that I am human though!
In our hands and feet are where most sweat glands are, (ok in everyone else except people like me), so I guess if the body suddenly needed to cool down quickly, sweating is triggered in our hands and feet. These are areas that are usually not covered by hair so evaporation of sweat can happen pretty quickly cooling the body.
0