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Which (chemical) is produced by fermentation?

Is there a chemical difference between perspiration produced by stress and that produced by heat?

  • An antiperspirant currently being marketed claims to counteract "stress sweat," which they claim has worse odor than normal. Is there any science behind this claim?

  • Answer:

    Sweat mass-spectroscopy and proteomics is still an ongoing area of study.  It's plausible (and likely) that there are differences in the quality of "stress sweat" that go beyond the amount and surface temperature of the sweat.  I am skeptical about the product that you mention, but the idea is not unfounded and is worth inquiry. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22256890 "Most of the proteins identified from sweat samples were found to be different than the most abundant proteins from serum, which indicates that eccrine sweat is not simply a plasma transudate and may thereby be a source of unique disease-associated biomolecules." Interestingly one recent behavioral study suggested that "male anxiety chemosignals compared with neutral chemosignals are capable of inducing an increased state anxiety in female subjects."  "Comparison of state anxiety of odor recipients showed a trend toward higher state anxiety in the anxiety condition compared with the neutral condition after 5 min of odor exposure. After 20 min of odor exposure, state anxiety of female subjects was significantly higher during the perception of sweat collected during the anxiety condition in comparison with the perception of sweat collected during the neutral condition." http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20929974

David Gorczyca at Quora Visit the source

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Stress is stinkier. My nose transcends the science, which likely exists. The ingredients look the same, but the directions differ. Marketing?

Catherine Lott

Although a bit arbitrary, the difference between "stress sweat" and other kinds may be related to matters of quantity, concentration and evaporation rate of the sweat, all factors that make sweat stink more if they are lower. When you perspire when it's hot or when you are hot (e.g. exercise) you tend to both produce more sweat and have it evaporate more quickly. "Stress sweat" is often released in conditions where both your apparel and the overall climate favour a long stasis of the sweat, and where the quantity produced is lower, and more concentrated. These are all factors that make it much easier for bacteria producing the classic sweaty stench to thrive. Whether an antiperspirant really is able to target either type is quite unlikely, as they are almost all based on aluminium compounds which work generically by keeping the skin as dry as possible by blocking release of humidity by the sweat glands. It is, however, likely that since "stress sweat" is both lower in volume and stronger in smell, the subjective effect of the antiperspirant may seem "better". This is, in fact, also quite a good way to cover up failure of your product to work in more extreme sweaty circumstances.

Ramzi Amri

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