Could another person’s bacteria be the cure to your body odor

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February 14, 2017 5:19 PM

If you have a bad case of body odor, even the most effective deodorants can have hard time fighting it off.

Armpit odor

New research suggests bacterial transplants could treat your smelly armpits

If you’re constantly trying to cover up the stench of your smelly armpits, you can thank all of the odor-causing bacteria that like to hang out in there. And if you have a bad case of B.O, even the most effective deodorants can have hard time fighting it off.

That’s why Chris Callewaert - a postdoctoral researcher at the University of California, San Diego - decided to test a new, but unusual, body odor cure, reports New Scientist.

Callewaert met a pair of identical twins who were perfect for his experiment: They were exactly the same, but one had really bad body odor, while the other smelled perfectly fine.

Thinking that different bacteria might be to blame for their individualized scents, Callewaert had the smelly twin wash his armpits with antibacterial soap for 4 days straight, while the fresh-smelling twin didn’t wash his armpits for 4 days.

Then things got weird. Callewaert swabbed the nice-smelling twin’s skin (and all of the bacteria that came with it) and applied it to the stinky twin’s armpits.

Sure enough, his B.O. went away, and it’s stayed that way for more than a year now. That’s because the better-smelling twin’s bacteria replaced the smellier twin’s odor-causing bacteria that give sweat its stench.

Now, the experiment has been repeated with 18 pairs of relatives. Out of that bunch, 16 of them saw improvements in their stink levels within a month, and half of them saw improvements lasting 3 months or longer.

The research is in its preliminary stages, as it was recently presented at the Karolinska Dermatology Symposium in Sweden.

Due to the success of the bacterial transplants, Callewaert and his colleagues are hoping to create a more generic collection of bacteria to use instead. Don’t want to wait that long?

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