Doctors have cured severe BO in a patient by giving him a transplant of armpit bacteria from his nicer-smelling twin brother.
Grim as it sounds, the painless procedure involved the better-smelling twin not washing for four days, while his identical twin with BO used anti-bacterial soap to get rid of as much of his own bacterial situation as possible.
Then the fragrant twin had his unwashed pits swabbed, and then re-swabbed onto the relatively sterile pits of the smelly twin.
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An eight-person “trained odour panel” judged that he smelt better post-transplant.
And over a year later, the smelly twin was smelly no more.
The scientists repeated the experiments with 17 other patients with body odour, who all had close relatives willing to not wash for a few days and donate some bacteria.
Most of them smelt better within a month, and half saw long-term improvements lasting more than three months.
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Like a lot of ailments, BO is down to the specific mix of bacteria we have.
So if you’re unlucky enough to have a particularly foul-smelling combo, there might be some hope for you.
The scientists from University of California presented their results at a Swedish dermatology conference.
They hope the same technique could be used to help patients with other skins issues like eczema or psoriasis.
