• We all need self- discipline
• Perspiration? No sweat 
• Andre Estafan's new look

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We all need self- discipline

A few days ago, the doctor asked me to go on a diet to reduce my weight. So I skip some meals. The girl next door assumes that I am fasting. Yesterday she said, 'My mother says it is good for one's health to fast, to skip a meal does not do much harm. But it needs self discipline to continue.' She is right. It does require quite a bit of self discipline. I get so tempted when I see chocolates or ice cream, but then I console myself with the thought that one must have self discipline to achieve any goal. 

To take my mind off the emptiness, spend some time digging up my old books. I came across a passage I thought I should share with you, since it referred to spiritual fasts, which are more difficult than physical fasts. It says, 'We could try to give up the sweetness of revenge, the bitter herbs of resentment, the sharp spices of gossip, the bland pudding of complacency, the ego-building proteins of vanity, the strong stimulant of prejudice, the heavy bread that nourishes unkindness and the dragging wine of self-pity'. 

Well daughter, don't you think this fast will require more self- discipline. Yet, if we could do it even though we may look ungainly physically, the world would be a happier place to live in. Maybe you and your young friends can tell me what you think of such a fast? 

Ammi 

Perspiration? No sweat 

The science of sweat: Sweating is good for you! It regulates body temperature by cooling the blood. The skin houses up to four million sweat glands; your back, chest and forehead have the highest concentration, but the glands in the armpits are the most active. Eccrine glands - in the palms and soles, for instance - respond to raised body temperature by secreting a colourless sweat that is mostly water. Apocrine glands - most numerous in the armpits produce the stinky sweat. 

Sweat doesn't inherently smell. It takes an hour for bacteria on the skin's surface to break down the sugars and fats in apocrine sweat before people ask you to leave the room. Deodorants kill bacteria; antiperspirants work by preventing sweat from reaching the skin's surface. 

The other downside of sweating is dehydration. Sweat contains sodium, chloride and potassium - the much-ballyhooed "electrolytes" lost along with water when we perspire. 

Electrolytes function as the electric currents that allow nerves and muscles to talk to one another. Lose too much sweat, and you're in for muscle spasms, cramping and fatigue, says Craig Horswill, a research scientist with Gatorade's Sports Science Institute in Barrington, Illinois. 

At room temperature, most of us produce 200 milligrammes of underarm sweat an hour. Multiply that by three when you're sitting in 100-degree temperatures. Horswill reports that a quart of sweat (try not to picture that) contains anything between 460 and 1,380 milligrammes of sodium. 

A history of deodorants: Prior to the 19th century, Westerners disguised body odour with perfumes or not at all; they didn't really care much. Then scientists discovered sweat glands, and women began rubbing their underarms with ammonia and water. 

In 1888, the first trademarked commercial deodorant - Mum appeared in cream form. An early 20th-century product, Everdry, not only stung the skin but also ate right through clothing. Roll-ons debuted in the middle of the century. 

The first aerosol hit the shelves in 1959, and by the early '70s aerosols accounted for more than 80 per cent of the market. But a mid-'70s ban on CFCs and on the use of aluminium zirconium in aerosols put a hold on those sprays. Dress shields also became a popular method among women for absorbing sweat. 

Today, the companies say their most effective products are the clear gels and "soft solid" antiperspirants - the ones that don't leave those annoying white marks on your clothes. 

Dry, good, wet, bad: Americans don't like to sweat. That's evident in the $1.6 billion they spend a year on sticks, roll-ons, powders, creams and sprays. Men generally sweat more than women, but women have more apocrine glands (the ones that produce body odour) and use more antiperspirants or deodorants than men (95 per cent compared with 91 per cent). 

Savvy business people have developed all sorts of products to combat sweat: sprays for hat rims and shirts, and clothing that gets sweat away from the body, or absorbs it. Scientists have yet to conclusively link the aluminium in deodorants to Alzheimer's disease, but alternative, "natural" products abound. 

The culture of sweat: 

Not everyone in the world is as embarrassed by sweat as Americans are. Members of a New Guinea tribe take leave of one another by placing their hands under each other's armpits and rubbing themselves with the other's scent. 

Smelling au naturel was de rigueur in Elizabethan times, when women would present their beaus with "love apples," notes a 1996 National Geographic article. The women held peeled apples under their arms long enough to absorb their odour, then gave the fruit to their lovers to inhale while they were apart. 

Sweat as an aphrodisiac has some scientific backing. Through our underarm sweat, we emit pheromones. Humans can't smell these chemicals, but our bodies register and react to them. Researchers have determined that women's ovulation cycles are lengthened and shortened by exposure to different pheromones. 

In native American cultures, sweat lodges have long been places of, physical and spiritual purification. Indians compare lodges to a mother's womb and say they emerge "feeling like a newborn 'baby". In Finland, saunas are nearly as universal' as bathrooms. 

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