BODY ODORS AND THEIR MEANING

by Dr. Lawrence Wilson

All information in this article is for educational purposes only. It is not for the diagnosis, treatment, prescription or cure of any disease or health condition.

Body odor is not a subject that many people want to talk about. However, it is important, especially for personal relationships. So let us discuss it in a scientific way for everyone’s benefit.

WHAT CAUSES VARIOUS BODY ODORS?

Many things can cause body odors. They include various bacteria and yeasts that live on sweat, and they include various toxic metals that actually have a smell to them. Some people are aware of this and will tell us they smell sort of metallic. Copper, for example, has an odor. It is actually related to yeasts that tend to grow when copper is out of balance in the body.

Another cause of body odors has to do with digestion. Impaired digestion causes the production of smelly chemicals in the gut. These can not only cause smelly bowel movements. As the chemicals are absorbed back into the body, the odors can come out in the sweat on the skin, and in the breath as well.

Impaired organ function can cause the production of many varieties of chemicals, some of which have peculiar odors. The most common is a sluggish liver. This cause a rather bitter type of smell that is quite easily recognized when one enters the person’s home, for example.

Another common source of odors is the breath. Certain chemicals are “blown off” or removed from the body as gases or partially as gases. These will cause bad breath or unusual smelling breath. Among the most common is a sort of salami breath odor. This is caused by certain chemicals made in the liver. Other people have what may be called doggie breath. This, too, may be due to toxins or a sluggish liver. However, there is a reason it is called doggie breath, as it is similar to the breath smell of most dogs. Dogs live on meat, and they produce a lot of ammonia and other smelly chemicals as they digest the meat. Humans should not smell this way, but many do who overeat on meat or who do not digest their meat well enough.

Constipation can cause bad body odor, and almost always does. This is because when one has constipation, food takes too long to pass through the intestines. When food sits in the intestines for a day or even longer in some cases, certain toxins are reabsorbed, and these cause various odors, none of which are pleasant.

Other possible causes of bad body or breath odors include infected teeth, certain diseases such as diabetes and cancer, certain emotions such as a lot of anger or fear, and rarely other factors such as a diseased spleen or stomach.

SOME COMMON ODORS AND THEIR CAUSES

Here is a partial list of common body odors and their causes:

1. Diabetic odor. This is a sweet smell. It is actually sugar that is building up on the skin.

2. Constipation. This causes a generally foul smell, like a bowel movement odor on the skin.

3. High copper/low zinc. This causes a yeasty odor. Many women know this odor from having vaginal yeast. Yeast often, though not always, has a slightly sour, and yin odor.

4. Meat eaters. People who eat a lot of meat and do not digest it well, which is almost everyone, have a rather foul, and repulsive sulfury odor like rotting eggs. This odor is due to the high content of sulfur-containing amino acids in meat, particularly red meat. These amino acids are very excellent, but only if digested well. Meat-eating sometimes causes other foul odors due to other chemicals produced in the intestines if one does not digest meat well.

5. Fruit-eating. Eating a lot of fruit always causes a yeasty odor, but a different one from high copper and low zinc. Fruit is extremely high in sugar, and the sugars often ferment in the intestine. However, fruit is also highly irritating in many cases, and the odor has to do with this irritation as well.

6. Fruit-eating plus high copper and low zinc. This causes an even stronger yeasty smell, as one is consuming too much sugar AND one cannot kill off yeast due to the copper imbalance.

7. Doggie breath. This can be due to meat-eating, but is often due to liver and digestive problems.

8. Salami or bologna breath. This rather annoying odor is due to constipation, possibly, or inability to digest meats and other proteins.

9. Nutty odor. This is due to eating a lot of nuts. Nuts are not that easy to digest. Nut butters are a little better, but still not that easy to digest. Many people eat nuts as snacks and believe they are helping themselves with a healthful food. However, they do not sit still, relax, chew thoroughly, and they do not digest the nuts well. The breath, in particular, and perhaps the body, as well, can take on a sort of nutty odor as a result. This is not a healthful sign, by the way.

10. Chocolate odor. This is a slightly sweet odor, mixed with a meat odor, mixed with a magnesium deficiency odor. This is associated with slow oxidation.

11. Magnesium deficiency odor. This is an acrid type of odor due to enzyme deficiencies when magnesium is deficient. It is associated with a calcium shell.

12. Fast oxidizer odor. This is a more meaty odor with no yeast smell at all.

13. Four lows odor. This is a cadaver-like smell. The body is shutting down and the odor is like rotting flesh, which is different from rotten eggs associated with too much meat and constipation.

14. Low Na/K ratio odor. This is associated with yeast, but also tissue destruction. It is more like a four lows smell, but not as intense.

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