REAL LIFE NEWS: A BETTER WAY TO BANISH BODY ODOUR
by Hazed
Experts investigating skin bacteria think they’ve come up with a better deodorant to deal with stinky armpits. The key is to understand how the bacteria creates a smell from sweat which is virtually odourless.
Two teams of scientists, from the Universities of York and Oxford, have announced that they have deciphered the first step in the metabolic process, which could pave the way for a new generation of deodorants designed to block the creation of the smells.
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."
The culprits are Staphylococus hominis bacteria. They use a "transport" protein to recognise and swallow up the odourless compounds secreted in sweat that they convert into BO.
Dr Thomas and his colleagues say the trick will be to produce a new type of deodorant which stops the transport system from functioning.
The source article on the BBC news website gives a helpful list of how to stop BO which seem blindingly obvious – wash, use a deodorant, and wear clean clothes. Of course the people who suffer from BO tend not to realise they have a problem…
