From: etxorst@eos.ericsson.se (Torsten Lif)
Newsgroups: rec.bicycles
Subject: Re: Commuting on a Bicycle
Date: 13 Apr 92 11:37:24 GMT
Reply-To: etxorst@eos.ericsson.se
Organization: Ericsson Telecom AB

It has been pointed out in a mailing to me that certain foodstuffs such
as garlic can cause your perspiration to smell without the
decomposition caused by bacteria. This is certainly true but slightly
beside the point in this discussion, since the smell of garlic from
your breath is by far much stronger.

Also some posters have mentioend that there exist preparations on the
market which give long-acting protection against B.O. by killing off
the offending bacteria. This sounds good but I have no personal
experience with these preparations. However, ethanol in the shape of my
personal favorite, AlcoGel, has several benefits: It's ridiculously
cheap, it's proven by long usage, it's non-allergenic and it can double
as after-shave and emergency antiseptic in your touring luggage.

A $2.00 bottle of AlcoGel is more than enough to last me though a month
of daily (facial) shaving and under-arm scrubs (every 2 - 3 days).

In article AA08048@hplomg.hpl.hp.com,
BRANDT_JOBST/HP1900_01@HPLOMG.HPL.HP.COM () writes:
>Torsten Lif writes:
>
>> A deodorant merely "paints over" the smell by hiding it with an even
>> stronger one. An antiperspirant is more efficient but the health issue
>> of smearing yourself with aluminium hydroxide is not fully resolved.
>
>After stating that the odor arises from bacterial action rather than sweat
>itself, it seems there may be room for other reasons "antiperspirants"
>suppress these odors.

It may be that I've been unfair to many deodorants. It's just that I've
personally been very disappointed in most of them.

Deodorant means Smell-Remover, i.e. something that makes you smell
less, though many (in my experience most) manufacturers shirk this by
putting in camouflaging perfumes rather than smell-reducing agents. At
least, few products labelled "deodorant" have been effective in
actually removing the odor caused by the bacteria that seem to enjoy
living on my skin.

Antiperspirant means something that prevents perspiration. The most
common active ingredient here is aluminium hydroxide which acts on the
sweat glands.

Many preparations are both antiperspirants and dodorants.
Unfortunately, the more ingredients there are in a product, the greater
the likelyhood that you will have an allergic reaction to one of them.
Toss in a bit of perfume in the batch as well and the risk goes up even
further.

>First off, I think it is misleading to imply that
>it is a foreign organism rather than the human body that produces
>objectionable odors when the body has many subcultures of such biological
>activities that function in parasitic symbioses.

I, in turn, think it's misleading to compare the bacteria living on the
skin surface causing B.O. to the symbiotic organisms active in other
parts of the body like the gastric system. One of the main functions of
the skin is to keep unwanted organisms out. To imply that just because
something is living on the outside of human skin it is some benevolent
part of our organism is naively optimistic, as can be seen if we extend
the mental experiment to include body lice and other highly unwanted
parasites.

The key lies in the two words "parasite" and "symbiote" Jobst has
grouped together in his statement. They're usually considered
opposites, though in real life the borderline between the two may be
quite hard to draw. A parasite is something that lives off another
organism without giving it anything in return. An example of a parasite
that lives off human hosts is the tapeworm. A symbiote is when two
organisms co-operate to their mutual benefit. The gastric bacteria are
good examples of this. The human host provides a sheltered environment
for the bacteria to live and lots of food for them. In return, the
bacteria help process the food so that the host gets more value from
it.

The question is then if the odor-causing bacteria are of any benefit to
us? In historic times they probably were. There are indications that
the concentrations of sweat glands in the armpits and pubic regions
together with the hair growths that remain there despite most of the
body being much less hirsuite, were in fact smell OPTIMIZERS, i.e.
their function was to smell as *much* as possible. This is believed to
habe been one of the signals that an individual had reached puberty and
was sexually ready. (Remember how we still sweat when we meet an
attractive prospective partner...) These days our ideals have shifted
towards the more visually oriented and we tend to dislike strong body
odors. So is there any benefit to be gained from keeping the
smell-creators of yore still on our bodies? I think not.

>In any case, epidermal
>generation of aroma can be muted by interfering with the conversion of
>organic matter.  As was mentioned by another writer, even alcohol can
>interfere with this.  

Alcohol and other antiseptics work by killing the (external) bacteria
before they produce any smell. This has the advantage of not
interfering with any of the body's inner functions. Antiperspirants
block the sweat glands. Many are hypersensitive to preparations of that
kind.

>I am sure that there are effective pharmaceutical
>lotions that can do this.  I have witnessed the results and it was not a
>perfume "painting over", in fact the deoderant had almost no flavor after
>application.  Riding behind the rider, who otherwise gave off 'choking fumes',
>no noticeable odor was detected after he applied deodorant to his armpits
>before the ride.

Sounds good. Unfortunately, few (if any) of them seem to be available
here. Could be that our respective pharmaceutical boards have different
sets of standards for what's allowed or not. For example, "Speed Stick"
(tm) is not sold here (the aluminium hydroxide contents is said to be
too high).

>jobst_brandt@hplabs.hp.com

---
 Torsten Lif                          |   "This is your brain"
 Ericsson Telecom AB, EO/ETX/TX/ZD    |   "This is your brain on the pavement"
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