The effect of β‐adrenoceptor blockade on human sweating

Abstract

1 Changes in cutaneous water loss were followed by continuously monitoring total body weight loss. 2 Sweating was induced in normal subjects by raising the environmental temperature or by subjecting them to the emotional stress of mental arithmetic. 3 Propranolol in a dosage of 0·15 mg/kg body weight intravenously had no significant effect on either thermal or emotional sweating, whereas thermal sweating was completely blocked temporarily by administration of atropine 2·4 mg intravenously. 4 It is concluded that β-adrenoceptor blockade has no effect on physiological sweating in normal people.