# Sweating toxins and alcohol **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [January 31, 2007, 3:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sweating-toxins-and-alcohol/390270 "2007-01-31T15:19:10Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Flipshod](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/f19dbf/32.png) [@Flipshod](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Flipshod)\ **Post date:** [January 31, 2007, 3:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sweating-toxins-and-alcohol/390270/1 "2007-01-31T15:19:10Z")
I realize that the sweat glands are not part of the excretory system (or whatever it’s called) and that the steamroom/sauna"flushing toxins" talk is not supported by science… But how does that square with the clear smell of alcohol in sweat after an extended drinking session? Isn’t that evidence of sweat removing alcohol (i.e. a toxin) from the body? I’m trying to convince my steam room associate that he is not removing copius amounts of toxins from his system, but I can’t get past the alcohol argument. Any help/clarification would be appreciated ---
**Author:** ![Flipshod](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/f19dbf/32.png) [@Flipshod](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Flipshod)\ **Post date:** [January 31, 2007, 8:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sweating-toxins-and-alcohol/390270/2 "2007-01-31T20:58:35Z")
Sorry, but Bump. My post got to page two with ZERO responses. ☹ I know it’s not the most scintillating of questions, but surely someone out there can answer. I’ve googled and searched past threads to no avail. I’d hate it if my ignorance were to go unchallenged, unfought, unnoticed(?). ---
**Author:** ![CurtC](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/ce73a5/32.png) [@CurtC](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CurtC)\ **Post date:** [January 31, 2007, 9:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sweating-toxins-and-alcohol/390270/3 "2007-01-31T21:30:58Z")
I didn’t know that you could smell alcohol in sweat after drinking. First, are you sure about that? ---
**Author:** ![Joey\_P](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/919ad9/32.png) [@Joey\_P](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Joey_P)\ **Post date:** [January 31, 2007, 9:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sweating-toxins-and-alcohol/390270/4 "2007-01-31T21:51:06Z")
[QUOTE=CurtC] I didn’t know that you could smell alcohol in sweat after drinking. First, are you sure about that? [/QUOTE] Never had it happen to me, but I know of two people who had friends swear they could smell alcohol on their bodies\* the next day (after showering the following morning). \*I say bodies becuase from what I heard, this wasn’t a breath thing, the person smelled like alcohol. FTR both of these people said that on the previous night they had ALOT to drink, and this coming from people that are heavy drinkers to begin with is saying alot. ---
**Author:** ![Fear\_Itself](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fear_itself/32/19637_2.png) [@Fear\_Itself](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fear_Itself)\ **Post date:** [January 31, 2007, 9:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sweating-toxins-and-alcohol/390270/5 "2007-01-31T21:52:44Z")
[QUOTE=Joey P] \*I say bodies becuase from what I heard, this wasn’t a breath thing, the person smelled like alcohol. [/QUOTE] Why can’t that be a breath thing? ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [January 31, 2007, 9:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sweating-toxins-and-alcohol/390270/6 "2007-01-31T21:57:55Z")
I wasn’t even aware that you could smell alcohol at all. Yes, some alcoholic beverages have a distinctive smell to them, but then there’s also all the stories of someone spiking a drink with Everclear and the victim not realizing it. ---
**Author:** ![Santo\_Rugger](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e95f7d/32.png) [@Santo\_Rugger](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Santo_Rugger)\ **Post date:** [January 31, 2007, 9:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sweating-toxins-and-alcohol/390270/7 "2007-01-31T21:59:23Z")
I’ve smelled it too, some people smell like a _brewery_, even after showering. ---
**Author:** ![Joey\_P](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/919ad9/32.png) [@Joey\_P](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Joey_P)\ **Post date:** [January 31, 2007, 10:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sweating-toxins-and-alcohol/390270/8 "2007-01-31T22:02:05Z")
[QUOTE=Fear Itself] Why can’t that be a breath thing? [/QUOTE] I mean like the difference between B.O. and bad breath, you can usually tell where it’s coming from. ---
**Author:** ![Spoke](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a88e57/32.png) [@Spoke](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spoke)\ **Post date:** [January 31, 2007, 10:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sweating-toxins-and-alcohol/390270/9 "2007-01-31T22:28:34Z")
According to [this site](http://www.intox.com/about_alcohol.asp): > [@](#): > > A minute amount of alcohol escapes metabolism and is excreted unchanged in the breath, **in the sweat** and in urine. [This site says](http://www.utexas.edu/research/asrec/alcoholfacts.html): > [@](#): > > About 80-90% of ingested alcohol is metabolized (broken down) by the liver. The rest is excreted in the breath, urine, or sweat. and this: > [@](#): > > About 90% of ingested alcohol is eliminated by liver breakdown (to a chemical called acetaldehyde). Small amounts of alcohol itself are lost from the body through sweat, urine, and expired air. It is not possible to measure acetaldehyde in the blood or urine as an indicator of alcohol in the body, but it is possible to measure alcohol in sweat (sweat patches), urine (urinalysis), and air (breath analysis). The most accurate measure of blood alcohol content is through blood samples. The next most accurate is through breath analysis. Urinalysis is not very accurate, and sweat measurements are not accurate at all, giving only an indication that someone has used alcohol in the past several days. I’ve noticed that next-day smell myself. ---
**Author:** ![Common\_Tater](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/common_tater/32/13846_2.png) [@Common\_Tater](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Common_Tater)\ **Post date:** [February 1, 2007, 12:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sweating-toxins-and-alcohol/390270/10 "2007-02-01T00:33:08Z")
About 2% of ingested alcohol is metabolized through the lungs, which is why and how “breathylyzers” work to a fairly high degree of accuracy. ---
**Author:** ![Randy\_Seltzer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/ee7513/32.png) [@Randy\_Seltzer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Randy_Seltzer)\ **Post date:** [February 1, 2007, 12:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sweating-toxins-and-alcohol/390270/11 "2007-02-01T00:43:23Z")
Forgive me if I’m showing ignorance here (if I am, fight it!), but whenever I hear phrases like “clears the body of toxins”/“gets toxins out of your system”, my crap-o-meter goes off. I’ve yet to hear a good biological definition of these “toxins” everyone’s talking about. The only toxin I know of is the kind secreted in the glands of poisonous snakes and spiders. Am I missing something? ---
**Author:** ![Flipshod](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/f19dbf/32.png) [@Flipshod](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Flipshod)\ **Post date:** [February 1, 2007, 3:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sweating-toxins-and-alcohol/390270/12 "2007-02-01T03:28:15Z")
I agree Randy, but if you sweat out alcohol, ain’t that a toxin too? So you really can sweat out toxins. See? (and thanks all for the reponses) PS - could the smell be coming from the skin and be unrelated to the sweat?? ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [February 1, 2007, 3:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sweating-toxins-and-alcohol/390270/13 "2007-02-01T03:32:16Z")
> [@](#): > > The only toxin I know of is the kind secreted in the glands of poisonous snakes and spiders. > > Am I missing something? Yeah, there’s also the kind in pufferfish, and ptui-birds, and dart frogs, and Gila monsters, and bee stingers, and… Oh, wait, that’s not what you meant, is it? ---
**Author:** ![Flipshod](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/f19dbf/32.png) [@Flipshod](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Flipshod)\ **Post date:** [February 1, 2007, 3:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sweating-toxins-and-alcohol/390270/14 "2007-02-01T03:48:53Z")
[QUOTE=Chronos] I wasn’t even aware that you could smell alcohol at all. [/QUOTE] For real? Don’t tell me it’s like natural gas and some regulatory body made producers ADD that alcohol smell to liquor, just so people wouldn’t accidentally down a glass of Everclear after their morning run. 😉 ---
**Author:** ![groman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/73ab20/32.png) [@groman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/groman)\ **Post date:** [February 1, 2007, 4:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sweating-toxins-and-alcohol/390270/15 "2007-02-01T04:47:21Z")
[QUOTE=Chronos] I wasn’t even aware that you could smell alcohol at all. Yes, some alcoholic beverages have a distinctive smell to them, but then there’s also all the stories of someone spiking a drink with Everclear and the victim not realizing it. [/QUOTE] … Do you not drink? Pure ethanol has a very distinctive ethanoly smell. Just like isopropanol has a very distinctive isopropanoly smell. From [here](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethanol) > [@](#): > > Ethanol, also known as ethyl alcohol or grain alcohol, is a flammable, colorless, slightly toxic chemical compound with **a distinctive perfume-like odor** , and is the alcohol found in alcoholic beverages. Now, you can spike a drink with Everclear and have somebody not realize it, especially if they are already drunk, but even if they are sober and are drinking a non-alcoholic beverage it can still be done - the alcohol concentration will have to be pretty low though \< 8% or so. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [February 1, 2007, 5:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sweating-toxins-and-alcohol/390270/16 "2007-02-01T05:46:01Z")
> [@](#): > > … Do you not drink? In fact, I don’t, nor do I often hang out in situations where alcohol is in abundance. And when I am around alcohol, it’s usually wine, which mostly (in my experience) has a fruity or acetic scent. I had thought I had heard somewhere that ethanol itself is odorless, and just usually found in conjunction with distinctively-scented chemicals, but I might very well be mistaken on that. ---
**Author:** ![AskNott](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/asknott/32/5790_2.png) [@AskNott](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AskNott)\ **Post date:** [February 1, 2007, 5:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sweating-toxins-and-alcohol/390270/17 "2007-02-01T05:48:39Z")
An old friend, who was himself a serious alky, was a cab driver for a while. He claimed he could smell the ketones from a drunk who had been on a bender for a coupla days. ---
**Author:** ![alice\_in\_wonderland](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/alice_in_wonderland/32/176_2.png) [@alice\_in\_wonderland](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/alice_in_wonderland)\ **Post date:** [February 1, 2007, 6:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sweating-toxins-and-alcohol/390270/18 "2007-02-01T06:00:16Z")
[QUOTE=Joey P] Never had it happen to me, but I know of two people who had friends swear they could smell alcohol on their bodies\* the next day (after showering the following morning). [/QUOTE] I used to live with a guy that was a heavy drinker. When he’d been out on a bender I had to sleep on the sofa because the smell the next morning was so strong - literally gag inducing. And I smoked 2 packs a day at that point - I can’t imagine what it would have been like if I hadn’t been smoking. It was he body for sure - he could shower and I could smell his arm and still smell it on it - disgusting. ---
**Author:** ![si\_blakely](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/d9b06d/32.png) [@si\_blakely](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/si_blakely)\ **Post date:** [February 1, 2007, 8:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sweating-toxins-and-alcohol/390270/19 "2007-02-01T08:31:24Z")
That day after smell is probably _acetaldehyde_ - one of the byproducts of alcohol metabolism. As people have noted, alcohol does have a smell, but it is more mild than acetaldehyde, which has a fruity smell. And it is a toxin. The next step in the alcoholic pathway is acetic acid - vinegar. Also a sharp (sour) odour. There are other metabolites, including ketone with a distinctive sweet, fruity odour as well. Plus the distinctive smell of alcoholic beverages (particularly spirits) is far more related to the aromatics produced by the distilling process than to the alcohol itself. That is why Everclear (basically water and alcohol) is less noticeable as a spike than other spirits. And those aromatics may not be processed by the body particularly well, and so water soluble compounds can end up in sweat, and a small concentration can be smelt (as they are aromatics). So - large liquid intake, alcohol metabolic byproducts, aromatics, alcoholic disruption of thermoregulation (causing sweats), bacterial action plus steamroom = noticable post-alcoholic fug Si ---
**Author:** ![Flipshod](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/f19dbf/32.png) [@Flipshod](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Flipshod)\ **Post date:** [February 1, 2007, 2:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sweating-toxins-and-alcohol/390270/20 "2007-02-01T14:24:18Z")
So it sounds like the straight dope is that sweating DOES, in fact, flush toxins out of your system. At least some. Are there other examples? Or is alcohol the only one? (And I’m presuming that if these metabolic by-products are coming out in sweat that it would be a GOOD thing to induce sweating to get rid of them, right ?) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sweating-toxins-and-alcohol/390270.md?page=2)