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Brasier et al. Soft Sci 2024;4:6 Soft Science
DOI: 10.20517/ss.2023.39

Mini Review Open Access

The sweat rate as a digital biomarker in clinical

medicine beyond sports science

1
Noé Brasier 1,2,* , Carmela Niederberger , Giovanni Antonio Salvatore 3
1
Department of Health Sciences and Technology, Institute of Translational Medicine, ETH Zurich, Zurich 8092, Switzerland.
2
Collegium Helveticum, Zurich 8092, Switzerland.
3 Dipartimento di Scienze Molecolari e Nanosistemi, Università Ca’ Foscari Venezia, Venezia 30172, Italy.
* Correspondence to: Dr. Noé Brasier, Department of Health Sciences and Technology, Institute of Translational
Medicine, ETH Zurich, Rämistrasse 101, Zurich 8092, Switzerland. E-mail: nbrasier@ethz.ch
How to cite this article: Brasier N, Niederberger C, Salvatore GA. The sweat rate as a digital biomarker in clinical medicine
beyond sports science. Soft Sci 2024;4:6. https://dx.doi.org/10.20517/ss.2023.39
Received: 25 Aug 2023 First Decision: 7 Oct 2023 Revised: 2 Nov 2023 Accepted: 21 Nov 2023 Published: 12 Jan 2024

Academic Editor: Zhifeng Ren Copy Editor: Pei-Yun Wang Production Editor: Pei-Yun Wang

Abstract
Sweating is an important physiological reaction and a clinical symptom in a variety of diseases. However, it remains
underrated in clinical use. Gold standards to measure the sweat rate are neither continuous nor easily or lab-
independently applicable. With the emergence of novel wearable devices, using the sweat rate as a digital
biomarker shows promise for clinical monitoring and diagnostics. In this Commentary, we discuss the potential and
importance of the sweat rate as a digital biomarker in clinical medicine beyond sports science.

Keywords: Wearables, sweat analysis, sweat rate, clinical sweat analysis, digital biomarkers

INTRODUCTION
Sweating is an important physiological reaction to maintain the body’s thermoregulation during exposure to
environmental heat stress or during rigorous exertion. This is one of the main reasons why the sweat rate
assessment has been increasingly investigated in sports science and occupational health since the emergence
of wearable sweat sensing. Reports from diseases such as the “Sudor Anglicus” in the 15th century,
alongside common medical knowledge from oncology and infectious diseases, have shown that sweating
has not only a thermo-regulatory function but it can be a symptom in clinical medicine as well .
[1-3]
Therefore, sweat analysis provides valuable information about health, disease, and even age . Still, the
[4,5]

© The Author(s) 2024. Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0
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