How the Skin Regulates the Temperature of the Body on a Hot Day

Sweat regulates your body temperature.

On a hot day your body works hard to regulate its temperature. The skin, your body's largest organ, plays an important role in this process. Know how it works and how to recognize when it doesn't.

Function

Your skin has temperature receptors that respond to changes in the environment and your internal conditions. On a hot day your body's temperature rises. As the temperature becomes too high, the skin receptors provoke perspiration from the sudoriferous glands. As a result, perspiration (sweat) secretes through the skin to cool the body and help it maintain at 98.6 degrees, its normal temperature.

Factors

How much you sweat on a hot day depends on how many sweat glands you have. Most people have between two and four million. How well these glands work depends on your health and age. Elderly or ill people may have a decreased ability to sweat. Children also have less ability to sweat and have a higher core temperature. Therefore, they dehydrate faster than healthy adults.

Danger

Drink plenty of water on hot days to avoid dehydration and the resulting heatstroke which can cause organ failure, brain damage or death. The Mayo Clinic says to look for symptoms like rapid and shallow breathing, increased heart rate, a change in blood pressure, disorientation, lightheadedness, fainting, headache and nausea.

References

• Medline Plus: Sweating
• Hawkeye Healthcare: How Does the Human Body Temperature Regulate
• BBC: Why Do We Succumb to Hot Weather?
• Mayo Clinic: Heatstroke