Why You Can't Really Sweat Out Toxins

The human body has a few built-in methods for getting rid of toxins. Sweating seems like it should be one of them, but it isn't doing as much as you think.

Hosted by: Olivia Gordan

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[emptysora_]

Honestly, any time I hear the word “detox” I immediately tune whatever it is out as its most certainly a scam.

[UrvineSpiegel]

Me: " Cheers to my liver, for keeping me alive through all the abuse I put it through."
My liver: " ... ... ..."
My kidneys: " Well at least he gives you credit..."

[Sciencerely]

As a human biologist, I can tell you that human sweat is much more interesting than it seems to be. Compared to most other mammals, sweating is quite unique for humans. This trait is commonly hypothesized to result from human ancestors moving from a forest to a warmer and drier open environment. Moreover, it enabled us to walk outside during the hottest periods of the day, when most predators are going to be hiding themselves from heat. Some even argue that sweating enabled us to become the "dominant" species on earth. Although I have a small channel, I'm planning to create a lot of videos about our amazing bodies!

[NamelessCruiser]

I like SciShow, because they back up things I've been saying for years with an internet video, which has more sway and credibility than just knowing stuff.

[Finkelfunk]

Title should be "Why you can't really detox"

[signing_light]

Kudos to you guys for getting the perfect sponsor for this video and for trying to stamp out the misinformation that is rampant online especially for children and teens. And especially when it comes to health.

[k-dawg]

Advertising free medical check ups... The US makes me so sad.

[mccama]

The kidneys and liver look so cute in this video!

[shawnwales]

Please cover more bogus "new age" treatments and "cures" such as essential oils and naturopathy.

[ispeakmytruth]

While I agree with everything in this video, I would mention (at least I have been told), that losing fat helps to detox because toxins are stored there, to protect the other organs.

[KoawNature]

"Pushing fear to make money." Well said about the sweat-based detox therapy!

[MichelleDespres]

Anyone who’s ever been the kind of hungover where your eyes burn and you don’t urinate for a day will tell you that we absolutely sweat out the booze. Your skin wreaks of it the next day.

[teemuvirtanen]

Yea i know that sweating doesn't help getting "toxins" out, but sweating after long night out works for me. I have noticed that sweat is more mmm... consentrated after drinking, that might be just follow up of dehydration, but it helps when i get rid of that "bad"sweat.

[theamericanstory]

Saying go to a dr and don’t sweat says everything about the mindstate of this person

[DarkSakuraHaruno]

Careful...I hear celery juice fanatics lighting their torches.

[audreywinter]

It's a special thing that kids get free checkups?
Children should *always* have free healthcare!

[SamBrownBaudot]

This was a well presented case, but I think it's fair to also say that the sweat glands are still regarded as one of the body's excretory organs, and there are cases where they do an important job.

Apparently this isn't a universal ability, but I've always been able to smell alcohol on drunk people's sweat. Or maybe what I'm smelling is the aldehydes or carboxylic acids that it's being metabolized into. Thanks, liver! It's not like I know what it is I'm smelling on drunk people, but there's a distinct aroma. It's pretty obvious to me that significant amounts of something are being released through the skin.

The skin is a fascinatingly complex organ, and while I don't want to encourage anyone for fall for detox bunkum, I think it's fair to say that there's so much more to understand about what it does than what we yet know. In recent decades, many countries (Britain and Australia, for example, not the US) have changed their tune of sun exposure, saying that some exposure to the sun seems to have role in more chemical processes than just Vitamin D production, which we've known about for decades. Nitric Oxide synthesis also seems to happen in the skin, in response to sun exposure. That's one that the studies are starting to pile up to show, and as we look further, we may find other chemicals aside from those two where sun-on-skin is a part of the metabolic process.

My point is only this: Saying that there aren't classes of waste byproducts that the skin is a primary excretory organ for may be premature. Still, even if we do find classes of waste products where the skin is the primary excretory region, it may remain the case that trying to hurry the skin along though forced sweating in a sauna is as crackpot as trying to use laxatives to detox. As long as you sweat at SOME point every day, you probably have your bases covered. And sweating from a jog is probably healthier for day to day excretion than sweating in a closed sauna where you're just going to breath back in whatever you sweat out.

[bailey]

So you’re saying a can’t just sweat out all my toxic masculinity?

[Modenut]

Someone send this to Tom Cruise. Scientology has me blocked on Twitter. =D

[Shreds]

More research required from sci-show it’s a pretty myopic view of how the body processes heavy metals. The skin does excrete heavy metal in a measurable quantity and the liver and kidneys can only bind a certain load of heavy metals, so sweating is a valid form or excreting metals aside from the work of the internal organs.

It should also be noted that hyperthermic conditioning (heat stress) has a host of benefits; showing significant increases in human growth hormone, increases in epinephrine and norepinephrine, and most importantly the release of heat shock proteins.

If you want more info look up my favourite scientist PhD Ronda Patrick or read scientific journal on Finnish sauna study..

Use the sauna, it will increase your all-cause mortality (you will live longer)