Just under a year ago, Buzzfeed did an interview with Hillary Clinton in which she joked that the reason she doesn’t sweat is because she is a robot.
It is a well-documented, improbable piece of Clinton trivia. It’s been been repeated in articles and books, and confirmed by friends and staffers. In the summer months — inside the unique hotbox that is a New Hampshire gymnasium, under the baking sun that afflicts the Iowa State Fair — reporters have seen it with their own eyes.
Hillary Clinton literally does not sweat.
This medical condition, the reduction or absence of sweat, is a not uncommon medical condition called hypohidrosis.
Hypohidrosis is diminished sweating in response to appropriate stimuli. While hyperhidrosis is a socially troubling but benign condition, hypohidrosis can lead to hyperthermia, heat exhaustion, heat stroke and potentially death.[1] An extreme case of hypohydrosis in which there is a complete absence of sweating and the skin is dry is termed anhidrosis.
Pretty much the only major risk factor from this skin condition is the increased risk of overheating, which is exactly what happened while standing in the sunlight at the memorial today while wearing a heavy dark suit.
I’ve got another friend with this exact same condition — she just doesn’t sweat — and she has to 1. Avoid direct sunlight for long periods of time 2. Drink lots of ice water on hot days and 3. Stay indoors in the air conditioning as long as possible.
Unless the AC in the White House has a regular habit of going out at the same time as the ice machine, I don’t think Clinton has much to worry about.
Edit: Thanks for the recommends!
Since people are apparently unable to click links on the Internet, I shall quote from the first link, the famous Buzzfeed interview, verbatim.
ANOTHER ROUND: OK. This is an odd question that I lobbied for a lot because it’s one of my favorite questions to ask people. If you don’t have an answer, that’s fine, but I will be a little sad. What’s the weirdest thing about you?
HILLARY CLINTON: The weirdest thing about me is that I don’t sweat.
Straight from Madame Secretary’s mouth.
Edit x2: Since the Buzzfeed quote is considered too jokey and is being discounted, I’ll add in this long form article from Conde Nast Traveler about Clinton from 2012 in which author Kevin Doyle says the same thing.
But even after living under the klieg-light scorch of media scrutiny as First Lady (eight years), senator (eight years), and now the sixty-seventh secretary of state (three years and counting), there’s one very intimate detail that most people still don’t know about Hillary Clinton, and which I shall divulge: She does not sweat. Literally. She does not even glow. No matter how high the heat, not a drop nor a drip nor a bead nor so much as the faintest glisten can be detected anywhere about her person.
It’s an improbable physical anomaly that was cited more than once (along with superhuman stamina, uncommon thoughtfulness, and a steel-trap mind) by longtime aides and members of the press corps.
Edit x3: Official statement from the Clinton campaign that she has walking pneumonia. See Onamastic’s diary here.
And she STILL went out this morning to honor the victims! Damn! She’s one tough lady.