Free Flow of Sweat due to Loss of Surface Tension at Sweat Droplet Causes Water-Induced Skin Wrinkling
1
Senior, Wayzata High School, Plymouth, MN, United States
2
Independent Scientist, Plymouth, MN, United States
- Published
- Accepted
- Subject Areas
- Dermatology
- Keywords
- water immersion skin wrinkling, dehydration, sweating, vasoconstriction, homeostasis, surface tension, Cystic Fibrosis
- Copyright
- © 2013 Marasakatla et al.
- Licence
- This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
- Cite this article
- 2013. Free Flow of Sweat due to Loss of Surface Tension at Sweat Droplet Causes Water-Induced Skin Wrinkling. PeerJ PrePrints 1:e57v1 https://doi.org/10.7287/peerj.preprints.57v1
Abstract
Sweat from the body is regulated by the surface tension of a sweat droplet at the pores and the pressure within the sweat duct. A sweat droplet grows in size until its surface tension and the pressure within the sweat duct are in equilibrium. When a hand is immersed in water, sweat droplets easily merge within the water, causing the pressure to drop at the pores. This in turn makes the sweat to flow freely into the water in the absence of counteracting pressure. Sweat glands produce more sweat because of the low pressure within the duct. To prevent loss of water from the body and to maintain the homeostasis, the body reacts by restricting the blood flow to the hand causing vasoconstriction and eventual wrinkling of the skin.