Sweat gland morphology and physiology in diabetes, neuropathy, and nephropathy: a review

Abstract

Context: Sweat glands (SGs) play a vital role in thermal regulation. The function and structure are altered during the different pathological conditions.

Objective: These alterations are studied through three techniques: biopsy, sweat analytes and electrical activity of SG.

Methods: The morphological study of SG through biopsy and various techniques involved in quantifying sweat analytes is focussed on here. Electrical activities of SG in diabetes, neuropathy and nephropathy cases are also discussed, highlighting their limitations and future scope.

Results and Conclusion: The result of this review identified three areas of the knowledge gap. The first is wearable sensors to correlate pathological conditions. Secondly, there is no device to look for its structure and quantify its associated function. Finally, therapeutic applications of SG are explored, especially for renal failure. With these aspects, this paper provides information collection and correlates SG with pathologies related to diabetes. Hence this could help researchers develop suitable technologies for the gaps identified.

Keywords:

• Sweat gland
• electrodermal activity
• diabetes
• nephropathy
• neuropathy
• biomarker

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Data availability statement

Data sharing is not applicable to this article as no new data were created nor analysed in this study.