Body Odor And Health
Do you know that the scent emitted by a person may be one of the first important clues leading to an early diagnosis? For centuries, body odor of humans has been used as a diagnostic tool in the medicine practice. Ancient Greek and Chinese civilizations used body scent to detect infectious diseases such as tuberculosis.
Body smell emanates not only from the skin but also the breath, blood, urine and other body fluids. It can reveal a lot about a person’s health and can be used to identify sickness to a certain extent. According to a Swedish research study by Karolinska Institutet, humans can smell sickness in somebody whose immune system is very active. This ability occurred within just a few hours of exposure to a bacterial endotoxin. “However, in this current study, we have studied the ability of humans to detect disease by smell”, Says Professor Mats J. Olsson, who led the study. “Being able to detect these smells would represent a critical adaptation that would allow us to avoid potentially dangerous illnesses. The question we asked ourselves in this study was whether such an adaptation might exist already at an early stage of the disease, thereby reflecting a biomarker for illness”.
Illnesses and Their Unique Smell
The Research of Professor Olsson and his team suggests that certain illnesses have their characteristic odors.
- Schizophrenia and several rare inborn metabolism errors, caused by enzyme deficiencies, are revealed by a distinctive body odor.
- Scrofula, an infection of the lymph nodes, smells like stale beer.
- Yellow fever can cause a smell of raw meat.
- An overactive thyroid gland can also cause stinky body odor.
- Dysfunction in the kidneys and liver can cause a bleach-like smell.
- Skin conditions such as vagabond’s disease, infected eczema, herpes labialis, and herpes zoster are linked with an unpleasant smell.
- Syphilis can produce a strong fishy smell.
- Diabetes emits a fruity aroma similar to that of decomposing apples. This is usually associated with the smell of ketones on the patient’s breath. The sweat also has a specific odor.
- People with typhoid are reported to emit a smell comparable to that of freshly baked bread.
- Gingivitis, tonsillitis, and Vincent’s angina can produce a rotten breath smell.
- People with diphtheria emit a sweetish odor.
- People suffering from uremia have a urine-like odor in their breath. It is called uremic fetor and is generated by the production of ammonia in the saliva.
- Osteomyelitis provokes a fetid odor.
- Diseases of the respiratory tract such as bronchiectasis, lung abscesses, and ozena are also associated with unpleasant smells.
How does Sickness Provoke Body Smell?
Diseases trigger chemical modifications in the body, accompanied by the production of different metabolic compounds. These changes in body chemistry result in various body odors. In the Swedish study, the link between smell and immune activation was to a certain extent associated with the increased level of cytokines. That means, the greater a participant’s immune response is, the more unpleasant odor he or she has. The results of this study strongly support the belief that ill people emit a chemical signal as a part of the sickness response. This body cue can be perceived by others.
When should you visit the doctor about body odor?
Some medical conditions may change how much a person sweats, while others can alter how we sweat, subsequently changing the way we smell. For example, hyperthyroidism (an over-active thyroid gland) can make people sweat much more, while liver and kidney diseases or diabetes can change the consistency of sweat so that the ill person smells differently. You should visit your doctor if:
- You start sweating at night without any logical reason;
- You sweat much more than you normally do;
- You get cold sweats;
- Sweating disturbs your daily routine;
- Your body smells differently.
Body odor may in some cases be simply physiological. It can be associated with poor personal hygiene or strongly smelling foods such as garlic. However, there are proofs that, in some instances, bad body scent can be pathological and connected to a disease. The ability to detect body smells would help us avoid potentially dangerous illnesses. Ongoing research on smell diagnoses, electronic noses and “super smellers” like trained dogs is an enormous step in the right direction.
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