Acidic body odor - sour smell

Acidic body odor - causes and treatment

Acid body odor is what most people find uncomfortable. Compared to dogs, rats and many other mammals, our sense of smell is poorly developed. So we only perceive extreme exhalations. If we find physical "fragrances" as a nuisance, this sometimes makes sense, because a sour odor may indicate illnesses.

contents

• Acidic body odor - causes and treatment
• sweat stink?
• garlic smell
• Can we smell diseases?
• Many smells
• underactive thyroid
• men and women
• When should you go to the doctor?
• What is an acidosis??
• Diseases due to hyperacidity
• Take less acids
• Alcohol and nicotine
• Menstruation and underarm perspiration
• Mental problems

The vapors also disturb those affected themselves. One of them writes: "I noticed a really disgusting acidic body odor today. I mean that it smells extremely in the area of ​​the breasts. At least nothing smells on my back, says my friend. I had a shower again at noon today (the second time today) but now I have the smell in my nose again. "

The sour smell can be very strong. Picture: ruigsantos - fotolia

sweat stink?

Sweat is initially odorless and consists of 99% water. There are also substances that can form odors: salt, protein, amino acids, lactic acid, urea, sugar and fat.

Sweat "stinks" when bacteria decompose it on the skin. This process releases butyric acid, which leads to an acidic odor. The longer the bacteria work undisturbed, the more intense the stench. So we do not stink "after sweat", but after its decomposition.

garlic smell

Not only harmless, but very healthy, is garlic, unfortunately, it leads to an intense smell. Our bodies also excrete minerals from garlic through their pores, and our body smells in a way that people do not find pleasurable. This also applies to onions, radish or cabbage.

Can we smell diseases?

A serious disorder of metabolism is the TMAU syndrome. Those affected stink like rotten fish, in sweat, but also in urine. Responsible is trimethylamine, which the liver normally converts to an odorless substance. If the liver does not work anymore, we smell fishy odor.

In people with kidney disease, sweat smells like urine. Damaged kidneys can no longer excrete urea and keratin sufficiently through the urine, and therefore these substances get into the sweat.

Kidney problems are also associated with itchy skin, nausea, swollen eyelids, and either too much or too little urine flow. Here dehydrating remedies that the doctor prescribes help.

Diabetics often give off a smell of acetone, and then they smell like rotten, alcoholic apples. It is an alarm signal. The blood sugar level of those affected is too high, as a result of which fat metabolism is guided and the blood is acidified. There is an immediate danger to life. The "stinkers" must immediately go to an intensive care unit, so as not to fall into a diabetic coma.

Many smells

Diabetic sweat smells like nail polish remover, say acetone. This substance forms in the body when it is undersupplied with sugar. Even if you are fasting longer, they develop an acetone odor.

If the liver is ill, you smell like a mixture of fresh animal liver from the meat counter and musty soil.

Excessive sweating causes them to smell slightly acidic, as more sweat than usual is decomposed by bacteria.

In typhus you smell of fresh bread. This smell gives off the salmonella that causes the disease.

underactive thyroid

If you smell of vinegar, especially in the morning, you may be suffering from hypofunction of the thyroid, especially if you are a woman over 40 years old. At this age, metabolism often works more slowly, and her body is now sweating excess acid.

The cause of the acidic odor may also be thyroid disease. (Image: nerthuz / fotolia.com)

Other symptoms of hyperthyroidism include: shivering, fatigue, overweight, depressed mood, hair loss, dry and pale skin.

The doctor gives synthetic thyroxine and thus compensates for the hormone deficiency. As a preventative measure, you can inject iodine into the body, for example as iodine salt or sea fish, and dairy products are also recommended.

men and women

Every human being smells different, genetically conditioned and dependent on our diet, our hormones, our way of life and our sweat production.

Men sweat "cheesy", in other words, they smell of the male sex hormone testosterone. On the other hand, women easily smell of onions, because the female estrogens contain a lot of sulfur.

When should you go to the doctor?

Warning signs are when your body smells very sour, without you knowing a reason for it. So, if you smell after eating a grill plate with raw onions or a French chicken with 100 cloves of garlic in your stomach, that's no cause for concern.

Even if you have not washed for a long time and spit in rancid T-shirt, this is a reason to get into the bathtub. But they are not sick, because the androgenosis contained in underarm sweat is broken down by testosterone.

On the other hand, if the unusual haze is accompanied by discomfort, for example, if you feel tired or have a limb, head or abdominal pain, then you should go to the doctor.

If you smell persistently acidic, acidosis may be present. The best recognizes a doctor.

What is an acidosis??

Acidosis means overacidification and means that certain acids in the body go beyond a healthy level. Often, a lack of minerals causes.

You can help prevent or counteract this by reducing sodium and eating a lot of fruit, such as fresh vegetables.

A pH of 7.4 in the blood is considered optimal. Values ​​from 0 to 7 are considered acidic, from 7 to 14 basic.

Normally, the body excretes excess acids through the kidneys. Not only do we consume the acids from food, they also come from transforming food into substances that the body can utilize. Even when we breathe out, we expel acid, namely carbon dioxide, as well as our intestines regulate the acidity. When the body constantly releases acid through sweat, the metabolism is disturbed.

Although hyperacidity has a negative effect on health, it is not a disease of its own but can promote various diseases, especially those of the metabolism.

Diseases due to hyperacidity

The most famous result of hyperacidity is gout. It is caused by uric acid crystals, which accumulate in the joints and cause inflammation.

Acidification, however, also plays into other diseases. These include: Chronic inflammation, acne and atopic dermatitis, urinary stones, ulcers, heartburn, diabetes, arteriosclerosis and muscle tension, possibly rheumatic diseases and osteoporosis.

Take less acids

Against hyperacidity helps to choose as basic as possible food. These include fruits, vegetables, cheese, potatoes, lettuce, dates, dried apricots and raisins.

No problem are pH-neutral foods. These include, for example, water, walnuts and butter.

Avoid foods that contain a lot of acid. This is especially true for sugar and all foods that contain sugar. Therefore, avoid finished products that almost always contain added sugar as a flavor enhancer, even where hardly anyone suspects it, for example in spice blends, canned soups or ketchup. You can make such products yourself without sugar.

Too much red meat complicates the breakdown of protein and amino acids in the body. The organism excretes these through the sweat glands, and bacteria decompose them on the skin. The sweat smells sour.

A lot of acid also contains all white flour products like bread and pasta.

Alcohol and nicotine

An important trigger for hyperacidity is also alcohol abuse. The "typical" acidic body odor of alcoholics, also known as "old man's sweat", is not necessarily due to poor hygiene.

Rather, the alcohol abuse interferes with the metabolism, the liver and kidneys can no longer do their job, and the body tries to break down the excess acid through sweat. This is accompanied by a sour bad breath. Alcoholics often interfere with the acidity of the stomach and intestines, especially if they eat too little and even less healthy because of their addiction.

Acidic smell due to alcohol and nicotine. Image: Nomad_Soul - fotolia

For example, nicotine and alcohol promote the production of stomach acid. But if this caustic juice has nothing to digest, for example because the alcoholic does not eat regular meals, or someone "promotes" his diet by smoking a pack of cigarettes a day instead of eating them, the system will not work anymore. The stomach is acidified.

The stomach now constantly emits acid to process the added alcohol, but without finding anything nutritious that he can put into action. The result is an excess of stomach acid.

Also black tea and coffee, as well as fatty sausage and fish contain much acid.

Menstruation and underarm perspiration

Women sweat especially before and during the first few days of their period because their hormonal balance changes.

Sport helps the body adapt to these changes. The underarm perspiration is also reduced when menstruating people avoid coffee, alcohol and hot spices these days.

Mental problems

Stress and mental disorders also lead to a conspicuous body odor. Stress means an increase in adenalin, which in turn stimulates sweat production. The same thing happens with schizophrenics. Both suffer from the typical "smell of sweat".

Also, if a constant acidic body odor does not indicate a disease, he often puts a lot of strain on those affected. Their fellow human beings, and often themselves, also find the smell unpleasant, and that means they perceive the presence of the smelling as a nuisance.

Even friends find it difficult to hug the "stinkers", and sexual contacts quickly fail due to the fragrance.

In addition, our weakly developed olfactory organ hardly works consciously. Our sense of smell is our "most primitive" sense in that we hardly reflect when a smell subliminally repels or attracts us. So we often can not "smell" other people without knowing why.

A sour smell, which can really point to illnesses, warns us unconsciously that the person concerned could carry along a disease that is transmitted to us. This is not least due to the fact that acidic odors are produced by decomposition processes, even in healthy people - and this is harmful to our unconscious, because decomposition by bacteria characterizes food that the human stomach can not digest: carrion, rotten vegetables or fruit.

Added to this is the social stigma: who smells strongly sour, which is considered unhygienic, "asocial", ie generally as someone to whom the basic rules of a civilized living together are alien. This is often not the case.

But whoever brings a sour haze because he does not change clothes, does not let water come to his body and loathes soap, is in fact responsible for the stuffiness. (Dr. Utz Anhalt)
Specialist supervision: Barbara Schindewolf-Lensch (doctor)