Just an FYI Humans and horses have something in common--they are two of the only mammals that produce sweat as a means of thermoregulation. Our armpits play a huge role in this process, pumping out up to 14 liters of water a day! You might think this explains why our pits are odiferous, but actually our sweat is sterile and odorless when it is first secreted. (Urine is too but, as we learned once, compounds from foods like asparagus off-gas when they hit the air.) The smell only comes when fat and protein molecules in our sweat are digested by the colonies of bacteria that are omnipresent on our skin. They metabolize the nutrients in our sweat, and create odor as a byproduct. We actually encourage this bacterial growth by washing with alkaline soaps, removing our underarms natural bacteria-fighting acids. Shaving underarm hair only creates a moister home for the bacteria. So, most of us choose to contribute to the $2 billion a year market (just in the US) for deodorant and antiperspirant. Deodorants target the smelly bacteria, while antiperspirants stop you from sweating. The latter is classified as a drug by the FDA since it contains aluminum chloride, which can harm our kidneys and skin.
Posted on: Wed, 24 Dec 2014 19:15:32 +0000
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