New generation of deodorants 'on the way'
Experts believe they have found a better way to tackle body odour (BO). The key, they say, is understanding how skin bacteria create the smell from virtually odourless armpit sweat.
Two teams, at the Universities of York and Oxford, say they have now deciphered the first step in this molecular process. It could pave the way for a new generation of deodorants designed to block this unpleasant chain of events, the journal eLife [open, DOI: 10.7554/eLife.34995] [DX] reports.
[...] Co-author Dr Gavin Thomas, from the Department of Biology at the University of York, said: "Modern deodorants act a bit like a nuclear bomb in our underarms, inhibiting or killing many of the bacteria present in order to prevent BO. Only a small number of the bacteria in our armpits are actually responsible for bad smells."
These Staphylococus hominis bacteria use a "transport" protein to recognise and swallow up the odourless compounds secreted in sweat that they convert into BO. And Dr Thomas and colleagues say this could be used as a blueprint to develop a more guided weapon against BO - a new type of spray or roll-on deodorant containing a substance that would stop the transport protein from functioning.
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(Score: 2, Informative) by BenFenner on Thursday July 05 2018, @12:58PM (1 child)
The odors are not objectionable because we've been told they are. They are objectionable. Full stop.
The odor doesn't exist in normal primates, ourselves included, as the bacteria that produces the odor naturally succumbs to the bacteria that feed on the odor-producing bacteria. That "good" bacteria takes about 30 days to grow and take hold, solving the smell problem. Once primates like us started bathing, showering, smoke-cleansing, alcohol wiping, etc. on a regular basis, the fast-growing smell-producing bacteria is quick to take hold and the "good" bacteria that keeps it in check can never get going.
Skip showers for 3 weeks and you will smell as ripe as anyone ever can. After 5 weeks, you'll be relatively smell-free, and after a few more weeks you'll be where the rest of the primates are.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 05 2018, @02:08PM
Don't know about that. Whenever we visit the ape house at the zoo where the higher primates are kept, it reeks of BO.
Are you say saying the apes bathe, or is it the enclosure but not the ape that smells?