Here's an article about body odor and what we eat, what do you think?

[Raineyrocks]

Body odor can be eliminated through a change in diet
Tuesday, February 08, 2005 by: Mike Adams
Printable version   Key concepts: body odor, deodorants and deodorant.


This article touches on a subject that's quite sensitive to many people: body odor. Here, we explore the link between the foods you choose to consume and the odor produced by your body (there is a direct correlation). With all the hundreds of millions of dollars spent each year on personal care products and deodorants, I'm amazed there's almost no discussion about reducing body odor by changing your diet. In fact, when I've mentioned this subject to some people, they look at me in bewilderment. They ask questions like "What do you mean, your foods control your body odor? Body odor is genetic!" -- or some other nonsense. What they need is a crash course in the underlying causes of body odor. We'll call it The Fundamentals of Offensive Personal Odors, or just Body Odor 101, for short.

Lesson number one in Body Odor 101 is that what comes out of your body reflects what you put in. Body odor is something that's strongly affected by what's being emitted by your sweat glands. And remember, armpits are designed to sweat. I know that may sound insanely simple, because everybody knows that armpits sweat, but I'm saying that armpits are supposed to perspire. Yet people go to great lengths to prevent their armpits from sweating using deodorant products containing toxic chemicals and derivatives of heavy metals like aluminum.

But there's more to it than just cooling your body temperature through perspiration -- another function of the sweat glands in your armpits is to excrete toxins from your body. That's why sweating is an important part of maintaining optimum physical health. You have to give your body a chance to get rid of various toxins through a variety of metabolic processes. Those include urination, passing fecal matter, exhaling carbon dioxide and other toxins through the lungs, and, of course, eliminating toxins through the skin. The skin, remember, is your body's largest organ.

Your armpits, then, actually have an important health function in getting rid of toxins. That's why you need to keep them open and unclogged by deodorant products. Sweating is good for you.

But what about the odor? Where does that really come from? Conventional doctors like to say it's due to bacteria living in your armpits. But that's ridiculous: our entire bodies are covered with bacteria, not just our armpits. And if the bacteria alone were the cause of the odor, you could eliminate body odor by sterilizing your armpits with rubbing alcohol or iodine tincture. (Try it, if you like: it still won't eliminate the odor.) The real cause of armpit odor is the intentional excretion of horrible toxins that your body is trying to get rid of. And by using deodorant products, you block the exit door and force those toxins to stay in your system!

The way to eliminate body odor, then, is not to mask it with unhealthful deodorant products, but rather to clean up your body from the inside out. In other words, if your armpits have a horrible raunchy smell, that's an indication your diet needs some adjusting. I'm embarrassed to say that I know this from personal experience. My own body odor used to be rather disgusting when I followed the standard American diet like most people do. I had to use massive doses of brand name deodorant products just to try to cover up the odor. Only later did I learn that those products are made with cancer-causing chemical fragrances that are absorbed directly into your bloodstream, through your armpits, where they enter your liver and promote liver disease, cancer, and a variety of other disorders.

Many deodorants and antiperspirants are made with aluminum in order to halt the perspiration of your sweat glands, and this aluminum is suspected of accumulating in the nervous system and ultimately contributing to nervous system disorders such as Alzheimer's disease. That's why I no longer use any brand name deodorants or antiperspirants. After giving up red meat, junk foods, fast foods and other dietary atrocities, I no longer needed deodorants anyway.

Foods that make you stink
Let's take a closer look at the causes of body odor. What foods really cause body odor in the first place?

Red meat is the number one cause of body odor. Red meat causes stagnation in the body; it putrefies in the digestive tract and releases all sorts of toxins into the bloodstream through the large intestine. I've noticed that people who consume a large quantity of red meat on a regular basis tend to have much stronger body odor than those who avoid it. Some people tell me just the opposite -- they say it's vegetarians who stink because they run around wearing no deodorant whatsoever. But my experience is that if a vegetarian stinks, they aren't following a healthy diet even though they are avoiding meat. (You can be vegetarian and extremely unhealthy if you consume a lot of processed foods.) Overall, though, if you find a healthful vegetarian and put them side by side with a heavy meat eater in a sniff test, I'm confident your nose will lead you to the conclusion that the meat eater is the most offensive of the two. It's weird science, yes, but we are talking about a strange subject to begin with.

As far as other foods that cause body odor, manufactured foods -- those lacking fiber and made with refined white flour, added sugars, hydrogenated oils and other processed ingredients -- are the big culprits. When you eliminate these from your diet and shift to a 100% healthful diet made of whole grains, massive quantities of leafy vegetables, fresh fruits, soy products, supergreens, lots of sprouts, raw nuts and seeds, healthy oils and other similar healthful ingredients, your body odor will all but disappear in a matter of weeks.

That's because a plant-based diet is an internal deodorizer. It's true: the chlorophyll and other phytonutrients will cleanse you from the inside out. Some of the best foods for that include parsley, cilantro, celery and all mint species. The aromatic herbs are also excellent: sage, rosemary, thyme, oregano, and so on.

As a sidebar to the body odor discussion, all the things that come out of your body are strong indicators of your current level of health, as well as what adjustments you need to make in order to be healthier. It's interesting to note that for hundreds of years, physicians actually tasted the urine of their patients and were able to make medical diagnoses by taste analysis alone. As bizarre as this sounds, it actually makes good sense. The human tongue is perhaps the finest natural chemical composition sensor known to modern medicine. (Dogs' noses are also good at this. Dogs have actually been trained to sniff out bladder cancer by smelling the urine of humans. Just search Google for articles on "bladder cancer dogs sniff" and you'll find lots of references to this fact.)

After tasting the urine, skilled physicians were able to offer astoundingly precise medical diagnoses. The problem, of course, is that doctors also tended to become ill from tasting their patients' urine, and so this practice fell into disfavor long ago.

By the way, just to be clear here, I'm not at all suggesting that you should be tasting your own urine. But it's very easy to smell your own armpits and get a sense of what's going on. Try going 24 hours with no deodorant. If you can't stand the smell from the outside, just imagine what your body smells like on the inside! Maybe it's time for some plants in your diet, ya think?

###

About the author: Mike Adams is a natural health author and technology pioneer with a passion for teaching people how to improve their health He has authored more than 1,500 articles and dozens of reports, guides and interviews on natural health topics, impacting the lives of millions of readers around the world who are experiencing phenomenal health benefits from reading his articles. Adams is an independent journalist with strong ethics who does not get paid to write articles about any product or company. In 2007, Adams launched EcoLEDs, a maker of super bright LED light bulbs that are 1000% more energy efficient than incandescent lights. He also launched an online retailer of environmentally-friendly products (BetterLifeGoods.com) and uses a portion of its profits to help fund non-profit endeavors. He's also a veteran of the software technology industry, having founded a personalized mass email software product used to deliver email newsletters to subscribers. Adams volunteers his time to serve as the executive director of the Consumer Wellness Center, a 501(c)3 non-profit organization, and enjoys outdoor activities, nature photography, Pilates and adult gymnastics. He's also author of numerous health books published by Truth Publishing and is the creator of several consumer-oriented grassroots campaigns, including the Spam. Don't Buy It! campaign, and the free downloadable Honest Food Guide. He also created the free reference sites HerbReference.com and HealingFoodReference.com. Adams believes in free speech, free access to nutritional supplements and the ending of corporate control over medicines, genes and seeds. Known on the 'net as 'the Health Ranger,' Adams shares his ethics, mission statements and personal health statistics at www.HealthRanger.org

[J’raxis 270145]

When I see a straw man followed by a factually untrue statement, I tend to give little credence the rest of whatever someone's saying:—

Conventional doctors like to say it's due to bacteria living in your armpits. But that's ridiculous: our entire bodies are covered with bacteria, not just our armpits.

No, they don't. They say it's caused by bacteria combined with the warmth, darkness, and moisture of one's armpits. These factors combine and cause the bacteria to grow more rapidly than, say, the bacteria on the back of one's hand or top of one's head. This excess of bacteria is why one's armpits—and similarly covered areas of the body such as one's feet—tend to give off odor.

And if the bacteria alone were the cause of the odor, you could eliminate body odor by sterilizing your armpits with rubbing alcohol or iodine tincture. (Try it, if you like: it still won't eliminate the odor.)

Actually, it will. I tried this several years ago and it actually worked without need for re-application for nearly a week. I slowly needed to start doing it more and more frequently in order for it to continue working, which leads me to conclude I probably ran into some sort of resistance phenomenon, similar to how bacteria can acquire antibiotic resistance.

[Kat Kanning]

When I'm eating all raw fruits/veggies, I don't stink.  (or maybe I just think I don't....  )

[Raineyrocks]

When I see a straw man followed by a factually untrue statement, I tend to give little credence the rest of whatever someone's saying:—

Conventional doctors like to say it's due to bacteria living in your armpits. But that's ridiculous: our entire bodies are covered with bacteria, not just our armpits.

No, they don't. They say it's caused by bacteria combined with the warmth, darkness, and moisture of one's armpits. These factors combine and cause the bacteria to grow more rapidly than, say, the bacteria on the back of one's hand or top of one's head. This excess of bacteria is why one's armpits—and similarly covered areas of the body such as one's feet—tend to give off odor.

And if the bacteria alone were the cause of the odor, you could eliminate body odor by sterilizing your armpits with rubbing alcohol or iodine tincture. (Try it, if you like: it still won't eliminate the odor.)

Actually, it will. I tried this several years ago and it actually worked without need for re-application for nearly a week. I slowly needed to start doing it more and more frequently in order for it to continue working, which leads me to conclude I probably ran into some sort of resistance phenomenon, similar to how bacteria can acquire antibiotic resistance.

Wow, that's interesting about the rubbing alcohol and that it worked for almost a whole week.   

Yeah really I could see where the warmth, moisture and darkness would increase the bacteria, I missed that part of the article.  I like using the crystal deodorants unless I'm going out then I don't want big sweaty spots on my shirts.

[Raineyrocks]

When I'm eating all raw fruits/veggies, I don't stink.  (or maybe I just think I don't....  )

I've heard that from a lot of raw foodists except when they're detoxing then they say they smell real bad but it goes away.

I am going to eventually get back into that.  My first step though is going to be using my birthday present from February, a wheat grass juicer, have you ever drank wheat grass?  I'm scared because a lot of people say it's real gross tasting.  For now Rick said to add a salad or some raw veggies in with our regular meals for awhile to see how that goes.

[KBCraig]

What we eat definitely affects how we smell. It also affects... well, "other things", having to do with taste. 

I was assured of this by a lady of my aquaintance, who was something of a subject matter expert. And she thanked me for having had the turtle cheesecake at El Chico. 

[Kat Kanning]

Why does cottage cheese come to mind...?

[sandm000]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Body_odor

Although uncited, this wikipedia entry says that diet may have a role in the production of body odor. 

I always thought that the excretion of bacteria was what stank.  And think about people who eat lots of garlic, you can smell it coming out of their pores.  So perhaps it is possible that what you eat affects the chemical make-up of your sweat, which in turn, feeds or stifles certain bacteria.  This in turn would determine how you smell.  If you aren't fond of how you smell, you can look for some good fresh mud and have a long mudbath, to try to repopulate your skin with certain terrestrial flora.  That might go a lot farther than radically changing your diet.  You can try the rubbing alcohol (at least 70%) route, but you should probably do an all over type of a wash, instead of pits only, because of the likelihood that the stinky pit bugs are on skin around the area as well. 

But on the other hand, you could learn to shower frequently, use strong, but not overpowering colognes or perfumes, and stick to deodorant sticks instead of antiperspirants. Because you couldn't possibly kill all of the germs in and on the human body, in fact it would hurt you more to do sohttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bacteria_in_the_human_body#Bacteria_and_human_health, because of all the work they do for us in the stomach and lower intestine.  In fact we might be here to serve the bacteria, as there are 10 times as many bacteria in the human body than human cells.  (on the order of trillions)

[Puke]

Body odor is also a sexual pheromone thingy that is pretty much lost in humans.
I'm pretty sure about that anyway.
That's why we have pubic and underarm hair, to trap the scent and attract a mate. Or some such scientific mumbo-jumbo.

If you don't like sweat then move to Canada and try not to move around so much. 

[mvpel]

Regardless of whatever laudable biological function armpit sweat may have, hyperhidrosis is a real bummer.  When the cold sweat is actually dripping down one's ribcage - in the immortal words of Guy in Galaxy Quest - "OH!  That's not right!"

There's a product called Maxim which is basically just a super-high concentration of the usual active ingredients in antiperspirants, and about a once a week application after the initial daily dose is sufficient to dial back the sweat glands to a reasonable level.

[J’raxis 270145]

What we eat definitely affects how we smell. It also affects... well, "other things", having to do with taste. 

Indeed. I've also heard of people going through brief odd-smelling stages when losing weight; this probably has something to do with all the toxins stored up in your fat cells leeching out, similar to what raineyrocks mentioned about "detoxing."

The author of this article just needs to learn how to make his case better.

[J’raxis 270145]

Body odor is also a sexual pheromone thingy that is pretty much lost in humans.
I'm pretty sure about that anyway.
That's why we have pubic and underarm hair, to trap the scent and attract a mate. Or some such scientific mumbo-jumbo.

Yeah, and the sweat glands in these two areas are also specialized to produce sweat that contains more nutrients for the bacteria.

[Raineyrocks]

Body odor is also a sexual pheromone thingy that is pretty much lost in humans.
I'm pretty sure about that anyway.
That's why we have pubic and underarm hair, to trap the scent and attract a mate. Or some such scientific mumbo-jumbo.

Yeah, and the sweat glands in these two areas are also specialized to produce sweat that contains more nutrients for the bacteria.

Yuk!  This just ruined my plans for tonight!

[Lloyd Danforth]

What we eat definitely affects how we smell. It also affects... well, "other things", having to do with taste. 

I was assured of this by a lady of my aquaintance, who was something of a subject matter expert. And she thanked me for having had the turtle cheesecake at El Chico. 

In an effort to keep this delicate subject delicate, I can only say that a very, very, generous lady  always appreciated my use of Tums and Rolaids.

[Raineyrocks]

What we eat definitely affects how we smell. It also affects... well, "other things", having to do with taste. 

I was assured of this by a lady of my aquaintance, who was something of a subject matter expert. And she thanked me for having had the turtle cheesecake at El Chico. 

In an effort to keep this delicate subject delicate, I can only say that a very, very, generous lady  always appreciated my use of Tums and Rolaids.

I think this went over my head at first.  So you mean if you eat cheesecake "something", (I don't want to write it but it begins with an s), will taste better?  If I'm wrong, sorry!  I just want to know if I need to put something extra on the grocery list this week.