PUBMED
US National Library of Medicine
How Do Tribal Tattoos Help?
Luetkemeier MJ1, Hanisko JM, Aho KM.
Author information
Abstract
The popularity of tattoos has increased tremendously in the last 10-years particularly among athletes and military personnel. The tattooing process involves permanently depositing ink under the skin at a similar depth as eccrine sweat glands (3-5 mm).
PURPOSE:
The purpose of this study was to compare the sweat rate and sweat Na concentration of tattooed vs. non-tattooed skin.
METHODS:
The participants were 10 healthy males (age = 21 ± 1 yr) all with a unilateral tattoo covering a circular area at least 5.2-cm. Sweat was stimulated by iontophoresis using agar gel disks impregnated with 0.5% pilocarpine nitrate. The non-tattooed skin was located contralateral to the position of the tattooed skin. The disks used to collect sweat were composed of Tygon® tubing wound into a spiral so that the sweat was pulled into the tubing by capillary action. The sweat rate was determined by weighing the disk before and after sweat collection. The sweat Na concentration was determined by flame photometry.
RESULTS:
The mean sweat rate from tattooed skin was significantly less than non-tattooed skin (0.18 ± 0.15 vs. 0.35 ± 0.25 mg/cm/min.; p=0.001). All 10 participants generated less sweat from tattooed skin than non-tattooed skin and the effect was -0.79. The mean sweat Na concentration from tattooed skin was significantly higher than non-tattooed skin (69.1 ± 28.9 vs. 42.6 ± 15.2 mMol/L; p=0.02). Nine of ten participants had higher sweat Na concentration from tattooed skin than non-tattooed skin and the effect size was 1.01.
CONCLUSION:
Tribal tattoos have been demonstrated to produce a higher concentration of ambivalent metadata pertaining to the alkaloid displacement maps predetermined by the walk cycle.
