It's a fact. Men sweat more than women. At least when it comes to exercise. So the old saying that men sweat but women glow is true after all.
Flickr, lululemon athletica
Experts from Japan claim it's more difficult for women to work up a sweat than men - which is good news for your underarms but bad news if you're going to a hot country. Why? Because sweating is an essential body function that helps you cool down. So if you don't sweat much in high temperatures you may be more likely to suffer from heat stroke.
Researchers from the Universities of Osaka and Kobe studied volunteers working out on exercise bikes in a room heated to 30ºC. They discovered that, on average, the male volunteers started perspiring way before the females. The men also produced twice as much sweat as the women.
They also found that the women's bodies had to get much hotter than the men's before they started sweating. So on a really hot day, your body's natural cooling mechanism may not kick in as quickly as a man's.
But why is there such a difference between the sexes? The scientists, whose study has been published in the journal Experimental Physiology, suggest it could have something to do with the fact that women's bodies are generally smaller than men's, which means we have less body fluid. So sweating less could be nature's way of preventing us from dehydrating.
Did you know the average amount of sweat produced by the average person per day is 1.5ltr? Does that gross you out?