Sweat chloride concentration: sweat rate, metabolic rate, skin temperature, and age.

Abstract

The concentration of chloride in sweat was studied in 12 men and 31 boys at Boulder City, Nevada, in June and July 1964. Five of the men had participated in similar studies at Boulder City in 1932 or 1937. Chloride concentration tended to increase with sweat rate but bore little relation, if any, to skin and rectal temperatures. In most subjects it was lower after acclimatization than it was in winter or spring at Bloomington, Indiana, or Santa Barbara, California. Individuals walking under the same conditions with the same sweat rate vary widely in chloride concentration in sweat. This is clearly directly related to age, as indicated by both cross-sectional and longitudinal observations. There are wide differences at the same age that may be inborn: One subject and his son have unusually high sweat chloride while another subject and his son have unusually low sweat chloride.