It’s that time of the year again: it’s under 70 degrees outside so of course the heat is on again in the every single building on campus. Unless you dress in layers, you’re bound to get a bit sweaty sitting in a warm building with 200 other students. I’ve always been curious about why we sweat and what causes it, so I decided to learn more about the topic of sweat as a whole.  

            First of all, there’s the obvious: sweating cools the body down. The sweat on our skin evaporates, which ultimately cools the body down. When the body is overheated, its initial reaction is to sweat. Sweating can occur while working out, being in a hot environment, and even during fight-and-flight situations (when you’re under stress). Your body has different sweat glands for the different kinds of sweat it produces under different circumstances.

            While researching sweat, I came across a generalization that “men sweat more than women” so naturally I decided to find a study to back this up. I found a study that took place at Osaka International and Kobe Universities in Japan, which claimed, “men do have a greater tendency to turn on and effectively use their body’s natural cooling system.” In their study, they had four groups of people: trained men who were used to regularly exercising, untrained men who were not regular exercisers, trained women who were used to regularly exercising, and untrained women who were not regular exercisers. For the experiment, “all of the study participants were set up in a climate controlled environment and were asked to cycle continuously for an hour while performing increasing intensity intervals.” The study found that the trained women and men were “better at utilizing their body’s sweating mechanisms than their untrained peers,” and the men were more successful overall. 

            While this specific experiment supported the generalization that men sweat more than women, I don’t necessarily think that this experiment is completely 100% accurate. First of all, the experiment never explained how the men were better at utilizing their body’s sweating mechanisms; what did they do differently than the women? Secondly, the experiment only measured sweat “mechanisms” while working out. According to a study mentioned on ABC News, “men sweat more than women because their glands have greater capacity,” but is this capacity the same for all different kinds of sweat? This specific experiment does not address the other factors that can cause perspiration other than physical activity. I’m not sure if these factors would influence the outcome of the study, but I would be curious to find out.

            So what do you think: do men sweat more than women?