Curious About Sweat

Bye. Hello and welcome back to the Curious Kid Podcast. Where we live, it's the middle of the summer. Temperatures reach above 80 just about every day and even 90 on many days. I don't know about you.

But I'm most comfortable when the temps are in the 60s and 70s. And once it gets hotter than that, I kind of prefer being comfortable in the air-conditioned comforts of my home. We are going to discuss one thing that happens to me and maybe even lots of you, when we go outside on a really hot day. Triple mailbag! Triple mailbag!

Hello, Jacob and Olivia. My dad always tries to say hello like you at the same time during the opening song, but he's not very good at it. I'm curious about why it is so hard to breathe after I run around. I'm also very curious why I get so sweaty at the same time. My kindergarten class loves to play tag. We run around so much that we all get out of breath, hot and sweaty here in Miami. I'm staying curious with you.

Oliver, five and a half years old, from Miami, Florida. Hey guys, I'm nine-year-old Claire from Great Falls, Virginia. I really liked your episode on the Rubik's Cube. And just like Olivia, I am better at solving it than my parents. You guys have the best podcast in the universe. It would be great if you could get curious about emojis, makeup, Sweat, cake, or ADHD. I know lots of people with ADHD, and I'm really curious about it. Bye, and thank you, Claire.

My name is Jackson, and I'm curious about sweat. My Curious Kid Podcast, this is Rachel Jackson's mom. We really enjoy your podcast. We listen to it every single night before bed. Jackson's really curious about sweat. Wow, that was awesome. Oliver, if your dad wants a challenge, you should go back and listen to episode 100 of the podcast. My dad's hello at the beginning of that episode was so long.

I think his face started turning red and he may have even started to sweat. He was really excited about reaching the 100th episode milestone. We are so excited to get curious about sweat for Oliver, Claire, Jackson, and also Hawk, who told us that he wanted to know more about Sweat by reaching out to us on the Curious Kid Podcast Facebook page.

For someone who sweats as much as I do, I'm very eager to learn more about sweat and why we all sweat. What's the question of the week? The question of the week is, how much sweat does the average human produce in a full year? When it comes to sweating, I'm happy to say that I am above average. Anyway, let's learn all about the fascinating and also kind of gross topic of sweat.

We're going to learn what sweat really is, why we sweat, and why sweat smells like old gym socks. Even though many of us see sweat as that salty stuff that our bodies make when we are hot, nervous, or running around, like wild animals, it actually happens to be one of the coolest things that our bodies do. Okay, let's start with the basics. What is sweat? Like, what's in it? Great question. Sweat is mostly water.

but it also contains salt, electrolytes, and a few other chemicals. It comes out of tiny holes in your skin called pores. Electrolytes is a big word, so let's break it down. Electrolytes are minerals like sodium, potassium and calcium that your body needs to keep muscles and nerves working. When you sweat... You lose electrolytes. That's why sports drinks like Gatorade try to replace them. So sweating is like leaking important stuff? Leaking, but on purpose. Your body uses sweat to cool down.

When it gets hot, your brain says, time to chill, and your sweat glands go to work. Your sweat glands are like sweat factories. You've got about 2 to 4 million sweat glands in your body. There are two main types of sweat glands and they are called apocrine glands and eccrine glands. Eccrine glands are all over your body. They make the watery sweat that cools you down.

Apple cream glands live in places like your armpits, and they make a thicker sweat that smells stronger when it mixes with bacteria. Ready to be grossed out? Sweat doesn't have an odor. What stinks when you sweat is actually the bacteria that munches on the sweat. Ewww. Let's dig into the why of sweat. Your body is like a super smart temperature machine.

It wants to stay at around 98.6 degrees Fahrenheit or 37 degrees Celsius. So when your body gets hot, it needs to do something to cool off. That's when the sweat... comes out of your skin and then evaporates, which means it turns from a liquid into a gas. That takes heat away and cools you down. It's kind of like a built-in sprinkler system.

That's a pretty good comparison. You also sweat when you're nervous, scared, or excited. That's called emotional sweating. Like before, a spelling bee or when I'm trying to beat a boss in a video game. That's your brain's way of getting your body ready to react fast. And it's also called fight or flight. Even though we understand sweat really well today, people didn't really have a good understanding of sweat long ago.

A long time ago, doctors thought sweating out what they called bad humors could heal people. They would put patients in hot rooms or wrap them in blankets to make them sweat. So they thought that sweat was bad. On the other hand, some athletes in ancient times believed that sweat had magical powers and they would actually scrape their sweat off and keep it in bottles. Clearly, they thought sweat was good.

In medieval times, people thought sweating was a sign of good health, so some kings would sit in sweat tents to prove they were strong. Clearly, people were not able to agree on why we sweat and whether sweat was good or bad. I wonder if people would look back at us in a few hundred years and think that we didn't understand things like sweat either.

That's an interesting thought. Let's discuss something that causes a lot of confusion among people. The difference between deodorant and antiperspirant. Alright Dad, let's talk pits. Deodorant helps mask the smell of sweat, especially in your armpits. Antiperspirant, on the other hand, tries to stop you from sweating in the first place. So one says, you can sweat, just don't stink. While the other says, no sweat at all. Exactly. And the cool thing is that some products do both.

Okay, in just a moment, Noah is going to join us to share what some animals do when it comes to sweating. But before he hits us with incredible facts, let's go through some rapid-fire sweat facts. When you exercise, it's possible to sweat up to one and a half liters per hour. Some people are born with no sweat glands. It's a rare condition.

called anhydrosis. The palms of your hands and the soles of your feet have the most sweat glands. Sweat can actually change color depending on diet or health. Some people have blue or green sweat. People who sweat more aren't necessarily less clean. They just cool off faster. In addition to all the other benefits of sweat, your sweat can help doctors...

diagnose certain diseases. This episode is brought to you by Progressive Insurance. Fiscally responsible, financial geniuses, monetary magicians. These are things people say about drivers who switch their car insurance to Progressive and save hundreds. Because Progressive offers discounts for paying in full, owning a home, and more.

Plus, you can count on their great customer service to help you when you need it. So your dollar goes a long way. Visit Progressive.com to see if you could save on car insurance. Progressive Casualty Insurance Company & Affiliates. Potential savings will vary. Not available in all states or situations. So, Noah is my brother, and I love him, I guess you could say, so much. but he is also one sweaty boy. He plays travel soccer and travel baseball, and he gets sweaty and smelly quite often.

In fact, when he takes showers after a long sweaty day, my parents make sure he scrubs his armpits really well. He isn't allowed to step out of the shower until he completes a pit stop. which is when my parents smell his armpits to make sure he's in the clear. Who better than Noah to dazzle us with facts about animal sweat? Here, with five unbelievable facts you need to know about animal sweat is my sweaty animal of a brother, Noah. Take it away, Noah. Fact number one.

Dogs don't sweat like we do. Dogs cool off by panting. They have a few sweat glands in their paw pads, but they mostly rely on their tongues to stay cool. Fact number two. Pigs can't sweat. Even though people say sweat like a pig, pigs actually don't sweat. That's why they roll in mud to cool down. Fact number three. Hippos have red sweat.

They make a red, gooey substance that acts like sunscreen and antibacterial lotion. But it's not technically sweat. In fact, it looks more like blood than sweat. Fact number four. elephants don't sweat much so they use their giant ears to help release body heat and stay cool fact number five some lizards like marine iguanas sweat excess salt

through their tears instead of through their skin, so they pretty much cry sweat. Nicely done, Noah. It's time to get to the question of the week. Humans sweat a lot, but you might not believe exactly how much the average human sweats olivia how much does the average human sweat in a year The average human makes about 278 gallons of sweat per year. That's a whole lot of sweat. And it makes me wonder, how do they even figure that out?

I mean, we're talking about close to a full gallon of sweat per day. That's insane. It is totally crazy. But now I'm glad we all understand that sweat is totally normal and not gross at all. It keeps us cool. healthy, and working properly. Without sweat, our bodies would overheat, and that could be very dangerous. Thanks, Sweat! In addition to thanking Sweat, we also want to thank Eula for the five-star review. It says...

Hello, I am Eula. I am nine years old. I live in New York and I love your podcast and always listen to it in the car. I have been listening to your podcast for over five years and I learned a lot. Keep up the great work. That's awesome! We love reading your reviews. Drop a five-star review for us, and we might just read it in the very next episode. Well, that's a wrap for this week's episode.

Thanks so much for listening to this week's podcast number 315 on Sweat. Great job, Olivia, and great job, Oliver, Claire, Jackson, and Hawk for an episode topic suggestion that was so fun to learn about. we didn't even break a sweat. Join us next week when we will get curious about radiation for a listener in Utah. As always, thank you so much for listening and getting curious with us.