Background

Excessive sweating is considered primary hyperhidrosis if it is triggered by emotional states without any thermogenic or other underlying disease from the eccrine glands. This may be due to dysfunction in the autonomic nervous system.

Aims

To investigate the relationship between Vitamin D and Mg deficiency and the risk of anxiety and depression in patients with primary hyperhidrosis.

Patients/Methods

This cross-sectional, case-control study was conducted between July and October 2019. 49 primary hyperhidrosis patients in Group I and 47 age and gender matched healthy individuals in Group II were included in the study.

Results

The mean 25 (OH) D and Mg levels in Group I were statistically significantly lower than in Group II (p < 0.001 and p = 0.002, respectively). Statistically significant differences were found between the groups in terms of anxiety and depression (p < 0.001 and p = 0.033, respectively). There was no significant relationship between the HADS-A / HADS-D scores and the severity of primary hyperhidrosis (r = −0.131, p = 0.096; correlation coefficient = 0.232, p = 0.447). However, a significant correlation was observed between HADS-A scores and serum Mg levels (r = −0.439, p = 0.007).

Conclusion

Anxiety and depression are common in patients with primary hyperhidrosis. As shown in this study, both anxiety and depression can be seen with low Mg levels in patients with primary hyperhidrosis. This could possibly be related to the pathological mechanism involving Vitamin D and Mg, which determines the common pathway affecting primary hyperhidrosis and anxiety/depression.