Gustatory sweating: (Hot flashes to scalp, face, and neck) triggered by hot food and drinks

From what I've read, sweat glands of the scalp, face and neck are triggered into action by receptors within the mouth, in detection to hot / spicy food or hot drinks. This form of sweating from these specific areas is known as 'gustatory sweating'. It's little wonder, that I experienced so many frequent hot flashes in these areas due to drinking so many cups of hot tea every day for years. IMO this has certainly contributed to oxidative stress within scalp tissue as well as the demise of my hairline.

My father was a cueball and he would sweat a lot when eating. It was a family joke that we could gage how good the meal was by how much my father's head perspired.

I think there is definitely something to this and despite my resistance to Xenon's theory at first, there appears to be more and more evidence making the connection here, although I think it might have more to do than with heat alone.

There seems to be an autonomic nervous system involvement with this, and I'm talking about obviously more than just the function of sweating as being autonomic.

We see hypersensitivity of many different tissues including even the superficial ones like face skin and oral cavity. The vagus nerve system seems to be hyper sensitive and over active especially being activated by emotional stress, embarassment, anxiety. This results in greater sweating. Then you've got the effects of temperature and exercise, and hypoxia that all just compound this. Then you have the effects of hormonal imbalances that make it worse. On top of that, diet has a huge impact. Its like a big interaction between nervous system/cardiovascular system (oxygen)/glands of the skin.

whodathunkit, that's interesting and I do believe that these gustatory hot flashes play a role in oxidative stress. This issue of gustatory sweating is new for me, but I read that receptors in the mouth close potassium ion channels in response to sweet foods. Some claim that minoxidil works by opening up potassium ion channels. I think that gustatory sweating deserves further investigation. Interestingly, during medieval times it was a wide held belief that bad teeth was linked to MPB.

Spencer, I agree. This is why I don't want to limit the cause of mpb to internal heat alone (even though I do believe it plays a very significant role in the production of inflammatory reactive oxygen species). For instance, elevated heat triggers sebocytes into producing sebum and p.acnes, and let's also take into account that toxins are released from sweat, so it's plausible to suggest that tissues which perspire most heavily may become susceptible to toxicity accumulation and inflammation (if you don't keep the scalp clean).

Additionally and bizarrely, protective lysosomes / autophagy, aptoptosis inhibition and progenitor cells are said to increase in hypoxic tissues, whereas the very opposite occurs under normoxic / hyperoxic conditions.