Sweat. We all do it

As you've probably noticed, the weather scene is a maddening place, one where popular meteorological terms include "changeable skies," "there may be a chance" and "I can't rule out." So here's a truism to rely on:

The sweat is all over us.

Beading sweat. Pooling sweat. Dripping, soaking, stinking sweat. The kind of sweat that reappears before the dampness of your last shower dries. The kind of sweat we love to badmouth and berate.

But to paraphrase John Lennon in a way that probably shouldn't be allowed - imagine there's no sweat. Go ahead. Give it a try. Seems pretty good at first, doesn't it? Refreshing even.

Then, like George Bailey in "It's a Wonderful Life," you begin to see the nightmarish effects of an alternate reality. On the economy. On entertainment. On fashion. On so many aspects of our daily lives.

Eradicate sweat, and you have a world devoid of "Cool Hand Luke" and "Body Heat." Without the word sweat itself, you'd have no Mister Rogers sweater or Tony Soprano sweat suit. (Can you say "Madon!?") Take away perspiration, and you sap James Brown of his very essence, while a Tennessee Williams play would lose its steamy, sultry soul. A little known fact: The playwright originally titled his 1954 play "Cat on a Humid Tin Roof."

And that's just the outside of the body. Look inside, then try to calculate the jobs involved in the bottled waters and sports drinks downed for rehydration on a daily basis. Gatorade, invented in 1967 by football staffers at the University of Florida, is so prevalent that it's now a major part of our pop culture lexicon - as is Evian, one of the early entries into the crowded market of pre-packaged water.

Added all together, it's enough to give a whole new meaning to the term sweat equity. And to think, you briefly considered ridding the world - or at least your own body - of perspiration. Not such a good idea. For the arts, for the world economy and, as any doctor will tell you, for you yourself.

"Sweating is the body's own version of air conditioning," says Michael Heffernan, assistant professor of dermatology at Washington University. "People have this mistaken belief from Madison Avenue and Hollywood that it's not normal to sweat, so they go to great lengths to avoid doing it. They would have a much happier life if they weren't so fixated on it."

Then again, easier said than done. Sweating is one of our great summer pastimes, a time-honored tradition. Some of us have even grown to enjoy it.

"I definitely like to sweat," says Nofa Shibley, a St. Louis area chiropractor who also teaches Pilates classes and runs the occasional marathon. "Sweating is a way of showing that I'm working hard, a way of showing that I've accomplished something."

"There's no such thing as a stupid question," says Dr. Michael Heffernan, an assistant professor of dermatology at Washington University. Or so he thought. We put the good-humored physician to the sweat test.

Q: Dogs pant rather than sweat - can humans reduce their amount of sweat by panting?

A: Umm. I know of no scientific answer for that question - and no one has ever asked me that before. But actually, the truth is that we do evaporate a lot of water through the simple act of breathing. I'm sure that when you are breathing hard, that could be the equivalent of panting.

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Q: Can you alter the smell of sweat by what you eat? For instance, could I end up sweating out a powdered doughnut smell?

A: You can definitely find foods that can be excreted in sweat, such as garlic. So, obviously, there are things that are well-known to come out in sweat and change your odor that way. I don't know if you can do a powdered doughnut, though. Sugar is everywhere, so it would have to be something that had more oomph.

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Q: We sometimes equate sweaty with sexy in our culture. Is there a natural, instinctual sexual attraction induced by sweat?

A: Well, (stammers) umm ... I'm trying to answer this as a scientist. I'll bet there are studies that would support that there are pheromone-like reactions to sweat. That would not be a surprise to me. It's not my area of research, but I'd be surprised if that kind of reaction wasn't the case.

Q: After a hot day or brisk workout, people will say they "sweat out a gallon." Is that possible?

A: I would imagine ... let's see, how much is a gallon? (Breaks into a sing-song voice) Pint's a pound the world around. And two pints is a quart. Is that right? And four quarts in a gallon. So we're talking about losing eight pounds? Well, I know a lot of people who lost eight pounds getting ready for wrestling, by putting on a rubber suit and going to sit next to a boiler or something. So, yeah, you probably could sweat out a gallon. And I imagine it would leave you very, very dehydrated.

Q: We hear a lot about the national obesity problem - is part of the solution that we need to manufacture more sweat as collective whole?

A: If you're saying we need to exercise more, yes. If we all sweat a bit more, we'd be a healthier nation.

•	Sweat. We all do it Maryland Gazette, Wednesday, July 21, 2004

	Story also ran in 5 others:  Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, Times Union (NY), St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Contra Costa Times (CA) and Tallahassee Democrat (FL)