What are the causes of female athlete's foot

There are many patients with athlete's foot, including many women. Athlete's foot can cause great pain and even affect the patient's daily life, so it needs timely treatment. To treat athlete's foot, you need to first determine the cause so that you can better prescribe the right medicine. Generally speaking, the causes of athlete's foot include a humid environment, Trichophyton fungi, bacterial growth, excessively thick old cuticles, stuffy and enclosed spaces, and mold growth.

1. Humid environment

The soles of your feet are a sweaty environment. There are more than 600 sweat glands per square centimeter on the soles of the feet, which is 2 to 4 times more than other parts of the body. There are a total of more than 250,000 sweat glands that can secrete nearly 500 ml of sweat a day. In addition to water and salt, sweat also contains lactic acid and urea. When the moisture content is high, it is very conducive to the growth and reproduction of bacteria and mold.

2. Trichophyton fungus

The culprit that causes foot odor is a fungus called Trichophyton, commonly known as Hong Kong's foot fungus, which produces an unpleasant odor after decomposing skin metabolites.

3. Bacterial reproduction

Because of the additive effect of the above two factors, bacteria grow on the foot skin. These bacteria can decompose the keratin of the skin and the urea and lactic acid components in foot sweat to form various metabolites with bad odors. When these odors are mixed together and tightly trapped in airtight socks, unpleasant foot odor will be formed.

4. Excessive thickness of old cuticles

Excessively thick old keratin, when soaked in sweat, will become a source of nutrition for bacteria and mold, promoting the proliferation of bacteria and mold and worsening the formation of foot odor.

5. Hot and confined space

When shoes are worn tightly and have poor ventilation, in addition to increasing moisture, the pH value on the skin surface will change from the original pH 4.4 to around pH 7, and carbon dioxide gas will be released. This environment is most suitable for the growth of certain bacteria on the soles of the feet.

6. Fungal reproduction

A hot and humid environment can cause mold to grow and cause foot odor, commonly known as athlete's foot. The symptoms of athlete's foot are very diverse, and not all athlete's feet have a bad smell. The type of athlete's foot that is most likely to cause foot odor is the type where the skin between the toes is wet and rotten, and the foot odor is the most serious.