Library · Anatomy
Sweat gland
Make it clearer
Sweat glands produce sweat, and they are not all alike: there are two types, eccrine and apocrine. Both sit in the dermis, the layer of skin below the surface. The difference is where they end: the eccrine gland opens directly onto the skin and the apocrine gland empties into a hair follicle, that is, into the root of a hair.
The eccrine gland is the thermostat. When body temperature rises, the gland responds by releasing sweat. Sweat does not cool you as it comes out: it cools you as it evaporates, because the water that evaporates carries heat away with it and brings body temperature down.
Sweat does not leave the body exactly as it is made. What the gland produces at first is water with sodium and potassium, two ions. But the epithelium of the duct, the layer of cells lining the outflow tube, recovers most of those ions along the way. What reaches the skin is, for the most part, water.
In brief
Sweat glands come in two types, eccrine and apocrine; both sit in the dermis, and eccrine glands usually open onto the skin, apocrine glands into a hair follicle.
The eccrine gland controls temperature: when heat rises it secretes sweat, and as the sweat evaporates it cools the body.
Sweat does not cool you as it comes out: it cools you as it evaporates.
Sweat starts out as water with sodium and potassium, but the duct reabsorbs most of those ions, so what reaches the skin is mostly water.
Sources (1)
- National Center for Biotechnology Information, StatPearls PublishingAnatomy, Skin, Sudoriferous Gland, StatPearlsPublished
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