Ageing attenuates muscarinic‐mediated sweating differently in men and women with no effect on nicotinic‐mediated sweating

Abstract

Ageing attenuates muscarinic‐mediated sweating. However, whether ageing also impairs nicotinic‐mediated sweating remains unclear. Further, despite the known sex‐related differences in peripheral sweat gland function, it remains unclear whether age‐related modifications of muscarinic and nicotinic‐mediated sweating, if any, are similar between men and women. We assessed local sweating in young and older healthy men and women (n = 11, each group) at two dorsal forearm skin sites receiving either: 1) methacholine (muscarinic receptor agonist, 5 doses: 0.0125, 0.25, 5, 100, 2000 mM) or 2) nicotine (nicotinic receptor agonist, 5 doses: 1.2, 3.6, 11, 33, 100 mM) via intradermal microdialysis. Age‐related reductions in methacholine‐induced sweating were observed at low‐to‐moderate doses (0.0125‐5 mM; all P≤0.05) in men, whereas a reduction was only evident at the highest methacholine dose (2000 mM; P≤0.05) in women. No effect of ageing was observed for nicotine‐induced sweating (all P>0.26 for main effects of age, dose, and all interactions). We showed that while healthy ageing attenuates low‐to‐moderate levels of muscarinic‐mediated sweating in men, reductions are only observed at high levels of muscarinic‐mediated sweating in women. However, healthy ageing does not modulate nicotinic‐mediated sweating in either men or women.

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