Sweat: Scientists A New Deodorant To Fight Bad Odor

Researchers have identified the "transport protein" that allows bacteria to recognize and swallow sweat. Hence the experimentation of new deodorants.

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It stinks of sweat, a new generation of deodorants is on its way. The annoying smell that reaches the nose of most people in such sultry days and that comes from the armpits of certain individuals has the hours numbered. In fact, science now says stop the irritating stink.

If it is true that it is not so much the sweat in itself, that is odorless, as well as the bacteria that begin to party in the armpits by metabolizing certain molecules secreted by the skin into odorous compounds, two teams of researchers from the Universities of York and Oxford have then identified in a new study the transport protein that allows bacteria to recognize and swallow the sweat.

And they thought: what if we made these bacteria alone a possible target for a generation of targeted deodorants?

How sweat "works"

Sweat is made up of water and some types of molecules secreted by the sweat glands. These are divided into "eccentric", which are found in the skin of the whole body and are responsible for the essentially odorless sweat due to physical exercise, with which the body maintains the correct temperature; and in “apocrine”, which are instead localized in the armpits and in the genital area and with water they produce odorless complex molecules which, however, can be assimilated by bacteria which convert them into compounds with a bad smell.

And only a few bacterial species in our armpits are actually responsible for the most unpleasant odors. One of these is Staphylococus hominis, which swallows the secreted S-Cys-Gly-3M3SH molecule along with sweat and converts it into thioalcohol 3-methyl-3-sulfanilesan-1-ol (3m3sh), giving it the typical stink.

Sweat: Scientists A New Deodorant To Fight Bad Odor

This happens because a particular "transport protein" in the cell membrane is able to recognize specific compounds and bring them into the bacterium. Here, in the cytoplasm, the transformation into 3m3sh takes place.
Discovering this mechanism that causes the smell of sweat, according to the authors of the study, can lay the foundations for the development of new types of products that act in a targeted manner, towards the small number of microorganisms actually responsible for the bad smell.

Already the current deodorants that are on the market act by killing most of the bacteria that live on the epidermis. The most common ones haven't always convinced us, but will the one the researchers have in mind will have a better composition? In the meantime, "let's be satisfied" with making the right choice by purchasing organic deodorants and a good Inci or, why not, try our hand at a fai-da-te deodorant to fight bad odors in a natural way.