I doubt it and here’s why - but bear in mind that this is purely anectodal, based solely on my experience:
Some people have acidic sweat and tend to make everything they touch rust overnight. For those in the high-precision, or high value metalworking industry like gunsmithing, it’s a real problem.
Sadly, I’m one of them: when I worked as a gunsmith, I had to either thoroughly clean all the parts I had touched during the day with degreaser, or store them in a jar of lamp oil or petroleum to resume work on clean parts the next day - something my colleagues with neutral sweat didn’t have to do.
Back when I worked as a gunsmith, I had a bad case of acid reflux. As a result, I would guzzle gallons of Gaviscon and other antacids all day long. That lasted for a good 15 years until I got so close to oesophageal cancer that I got experimental surgery to my stomach to solve the problem.
The surgery worked great. But guess what: I still sprinkle rusty fingerprints on all the steel parts I touch. My stomach probably had higher-than-normal pH for years with all the antacid medicines I popped, and now it’s back to normal, yet there’s zero difference to my unfortunate ability to ruin nice steel parts with my sweat.
Make of this what you will. It’s not proof of anything, I’m a statistical sample of one here. But I figured maybe my perspective on your question might interest you.
The more you know! I knew someone who would drain clock batteries abnormally fast (back in the day), maybe they had the same condition?
Glad you got better!
My sweat pH seems to change with some pain killers or muscle relaxers. My actual diet is at least top 10% with almost nothing processed, no sodas, and I never eat out anywhere.
For a long time I thought sweat pH might be related to sleep and physical stress on a deeply internal level. Like after my broken neck and back, after the two months in a collar, I started riding again. You know, push through until things get better and all. My sweat was so corrosive that removing bar tape on a road bike after a month of daily short rides looked like a meth lab chemistry experiment with yellow-white powder and crystals forming. Oh god, and the smell was death incarnate. I was riding SRAM force shifters back then. SRAM road stuff is not particularly heavy on ferrous metals or complexity for that matter but they have a bunch of circlips holding the shift index mechanism together. Those circlips disintegrated like Alka-Seltzer tablets in water after only around 6 months. I have never seen anything like that before, and I worked in many bike shops for years as the Buyer for a chain where I managed all warranty stuff too.
I just started taking a new muscle relaxer a few weeks ago. I’m getting the most sleep I have gotten in 12 years. I intentionally have no stress, physical or otherwise, and my diet is routine and rigidly controlled. Still, I can feel and smell the difference when I sweat. Like my hands feel a little oily and dirty from sweat. Prior to bike life I painted cars so I’m also hyper aware of my sense of touch, and any potential contamination from my hands is like an instinctual alarm going off in my head.
It makes me wonder how one might alter the chemistry of food or some other factor to alter the outcome. Excess stomach acid is a side effect of the muscle relaxer I am on now. Thus the reason for the question. Anyways your anecdotal situation is as interesting as mine. Perhaps there are other factors at play.
Your experience actually aligns with research showing that certain medications can alter sweat composition through systemic effects, not necessarily through stomach pH directly - it’s the pharmacokinetics of how drugs distribute throughout body tissues and fluids thats causing those changes!
