Table 2.
Studies of cadmium excretion in sweat.
| Study | Country, participants | Study design and intervention | Key findings (concentrations μg/L unless otherwise indicated) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Genuis et al., 2010 [3] | Canada 10 with chronic conditions 10 healthy |
Simultaneous measurement of toxic trace elements in blood plasma, urine, and sweat Exercise or sauna Sweat collected directly into bottle |
3 participants with cadmium detected in all samples Blood plasma mean: 0.03 (range 0.02–0.07) (n = 11) Urine mean: 0.28 (0.18–0.39) (n = 3) Sweat mean: 5.7 (0.36–36) (n = 18) |
|
| |||
| Omokhodion and Howard, 1994 [30] | UK 15 healthy participants |
Sweat collected using modified arm bag (hand excluded) Participants exercised at room temperature |
Cadmium detected in 13 sweat samples Mean 1.9 Range 1.1–3.1 |
|
| |||
| Stauber and Florence, 1988 [28] | Australia 24 males 13 females taking oral contraceptives 26 females not taking oral contraceptives |
Forearm sweat induced by pilocarpine iontophoresis and collected on a membrane filter | Males mean sweat cadmium 1.4 (range <0.5–10) Females not taking contraceptives 2.6 (<0.5–18) Females taking contraceptives 2.4 (<0.5–5.5) |
|
| |||
| Stauber and Florence, 1987 [22] | Australia 9 males 7 females taking oral contraceptives 6 not taking oral contraceptives (unclear overlap with 1988 participants) |
Forearm sweat induced by pilocarpine iontophoresis and collected on a membrane filter | Cadmium not detected in sweat (0.5 detection limit) Mean blood cadmium 0.8 |
|
| |||
| Robinson and Weiss, 1980 [31] | USA 28 males (university faculty members) |
Exercise and shower preceded sauna for sweat collection. Sweat collected as drips from forehead or nose | Sweat cadmium (range 11–200) Urine cadmium (range ND–67) Sweat/urine ratio (range 1.0–16) No correlation between the concentrations in urine and sweat |
|
| |||
| Robinson and Weiss, 1980 [32] (companion to previous) | USA 2 males (university faculty members) |
As previous, cadmium also measured in hair segments. | Daily excretion of cadmium estimated as follows: (i) 30 μg/day in urine (ii) 120 μg/day in sweat (iii) 0.2 μg/day in hair Cadmium concentrations in hair and sweat were lower in one participant than the other |
|
| |||
| Cohn and Emmett, 1978 [33] | USA 6 males 3 females |
Total body washdown and arm bag techniques | Mean concentration of cadmium in sweat > urine Arm bags yielded lower levels than whole body measurements |