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Causes
By Mayo Clinic staffThe cause of sweating and body odor stems from your body's temperature regulation system, specifically your sweat glands.
Your skin has two types of sweat glands: eccrine glands and apocrine glands. Eccrine glands occur over most of your body and open directly onto the surface of the skin. Apocrine glands develop in areas abundant in hair follicles, such as on your scalp, armpits and groin.
When your body temperature rises, your autonomic nervous system stimulates the eccrine glands to secrete fluid onto the surface of your skin, where it cools your body as it evaporates. This fluid (perspiration) is composed mainly of water and salt (sodium chloride) and contains trace amounts of other electrolytes — substances that help regulate the balance of fluids in your body — as well as substances such as urea.
Apocrine glands, on the other hand, secrete a fatty sweat directly into the tubule of the gland. When you're under emotional stress, the wall of the tubule contracts and the sweat is pushed to the surface of your skin where bacteria begin breaking it down. Most often, it's the bacterial breakdown of apocrine sweat that causes an odor.
- Rados C. Antiperspirant awareness: It's mostly no sweat. Food and Drug Administration. http://www.fda.gov/fdac/features/2005/405_sweat.html. Accessed Oct. 14, 2008.
- Biology of eccrine, apocrine, and apoeccrine sweat glands. In: Wolff K, et al. Fitzpatrick's Dermatology in General Medicine. 7th ed. New York, N.Y.: The McGraw-Hill Companies; 2008. http://www.accessmedicine.com/popup.aspx?aID=2956362&print=yes_chapter. Accessed Oct. 14, 2008.
- Smith CC, et al. Idiopathic hyperhidrosis. http://www.uptodate.com/home/index.html. Accessed Oct. 15, 2008.
- Morelli JG. Disorders of the sweat glands. In: Kliegman RM, et al. Nelson Textbook of Pediatrics. 18th ed. Philadelphia, Pa.: Saunders Elsevier; 2007. http://www.mdconsult.com/das/book/body/108020522-2/761896310/1608/1544.html. Accessed Oct. 20, 2008.
- Gibson LE (expert opinion). Mayo Clinic, Rochester, Minn. Oct. 27, 2008.
- Kitabchi AE, et al. Clinical features and diagnosis of diabetic ketoacidosis and hyperosmolar hyperglycemic state in adults. http://www.uptodate.com/home/index.html. Accessed Oct. 22, 2008.
- Mitch WE. Chronic kidney disease. In: Goldman L, et al. Cecil Medicine. 23rd ed. Philadelphia, Pa.: Saunders Elsevier; 2007. http://www.mdconsult.com/das/book/body/109232365-3/767978930/1492/501.html#4-u1.0-B978-1-4160-2805-5..50136-1--cesec17_5590. Accessed Nov. 4, 2008.
