Sudoresis is the main autonomic human thermoregulatory mechanism. It can be influenced by several factors, including diseases, among them diabetes mellitus Type 1 (DM1), whose patients are potential victims of thermoregulatory disturbances. Regular physical exercises are recommended to diabetic people and some of them even become athletes. However, up to now, the sweat rate (SR) of diabetic patients during graded exercise until exhaustion (GXT) has not been compared to the SR of healthy individuals with similar physical characteristics. The present study measured global (SRglobal) and local (SRlocal) sweat rates during GXT in 14 diabetic (DM) and control subjects (CG), similar in age, gender, body composition and aerobic capacity. Urine specific gravity (Gu), body mass and blood glucose (Gblood) were measured before and after GXT. Besides that, Srlocal (forearm and leg) was measured by iontophoresis with pilocarpine (0.5%) in the DM group. Heart rate (HR), skin temperature (Tsk) and environmental thermal conditions were measured during the experiment. Both initial and final Gblood were higher in the DM, as expected. The Gu were similar between groups. Exercise induced similar SRglobal and SRlocal in both groups, whereas the rest HR and rest and exercise Tsk were higher in the DM. Forearm and leg SR were not different in the DM. It was concluded that the sweating response was not different between young diabetic patients and control group during GXT in a temperate environment.
diabetic autonomic neuropathy; thermoregulation; sweat glands
