Can sweating excrete uric acid?

Many people mistakenly believe that uric acid can be excreted when sweating. We know that excessive uric acid has a great impact on physical health. Some people hope to achieve sweating through a lot of exercise to reduce uric acid. In fact, this method is ineffective and may even cause increased uric acid. In addition, excessive sweating will also have adverse effects on kidney health. Let us learn about this aspect.

How much uric acid can be excreted through sweating?

Relevant data from home and abroad show that the concentration of uric acid in sweat can reach up to 35.7μmol/L. How to understand it? Suppose you risk your life to do high-intensity exercise and sweat 10 kilograms (the possibility is very small). 10 kilograms of sweat can excrete a maximum of 30 mg of uric acid. Under normal circumstances, a person excretes 600 mg of uric acid through urine per day. This means that you have to work out hard and lose 10 kilograms of sweat to excrete 1/20 of the total uric acid excreted in a day. I say this three times because it is important: 1/20, 1/20, 1/20. That is to say, it is far from enough to excrete uric acid through sweating. Uric acid is mainly excreted through the kidneys (urine) and intestines (feces).

Does excessive sweating affect the excretion of uric acid by the kidneys?

Everyone should have this experience in life: when you sweat a lot, the amount of urine becomes significantly less! From a medical point of view, the large amount of sodium loss caused by sweating during exercise will lead to enhanced renal tubular reabsorption and reduce uric acid excretion. In addition, excessive sweating leads to insufficient effective circulating blood volume, resulting in insufficient blood supply to the kidneys and less urine excretion. In other words, excessive sweating will inevitably affect urine volume, thereby affecting the kidney's excretion of uric acid. The kidneys excrete 70% of the total uric acid, and the proportion of uric acid excreted through sweat is negligible. So, have you realized that after excessive sweating, the body's uric acid excretion may actually decrease? Some people use sauna and sweat steaming to excrete uric acid. Do you regret it now?

How to deal with the impact of excessive sweating on uric acid excretion?

As mentioned above, excessive sweating leads to a decrease in urine volume, thus affecting uric acid excretion. Therefore, it is crucial to keep an eye on your urine output at all times. If you sweat excessively accidentally, you should replenish enough water in time. It is generally recommended that gout patients drink more than 2L of water per day. If you sweat excessively, you should replenish the lost sweat by drinking water. Never drink water when you are thirsty. Thirst is a signal of insufficient water. You should actively drink water before the thirst signal comes, so as not to affect the kidney's excretion of uric acid!

Summarize

To sum up, although sweat can excrete a small amount of uric acid, excessive sweating will inevitably affect the kidneys' excretion of uric acid (the kidneys are the strongest organ for excreting uric acid). If you want to lower uric acid by sweating a lot during exercise, you'd better give up as it will not only fail to achieve the desired effect, but may also backfire and increase uric acid.