What should sweat smell like

Maharam says dehydration can also contribute to the smell because it makes your sweat more concentrated. If your pee is clear, drink less. The big takeaway here is that ammonia-scented sweat is not normal or healthy. Both he and Roberts agree you need to add more carbohydrates to your diet. The original version of this story mischaracterized the way that carbohydrates affect protein in the body. W hen Annlyse Retiveau leaned in to sniff my armpits, I held my own breath as she inhaled. Yet, whether we like it or not, humans do smell each other, and we can glean useful social cues and health information from the body odor of others, albeit sometimes unconsciously.

As a professional nose at the New Jersey-based company Sensory Spectrum , she smells things for a living, to help companies assess the aromas in a new coffee brew, or to evaluate whether a deodorant successfully blocks body odor. Most of our potent body odour arises from a kind of sweat that emerges from apocrine glands in our armpits.

Apocrine glands become active at puberty and are primarily responsible for turning armpits into stink zones from adolescence onward. Meanwhile the salty stuff that flows when we exercise or are overheated emerges from a different, more abundant, kind of sweat gland—the eccrine gland. Most of us have between 2 and 5 million of eccrine sweat glands sprinkled across our whole body, including the armpit. When it emerges from our pores, sweat is relatively odorless. Potent aroma arises when bacteria living in our armpits devour sweat as food, and release heady odors as a by-product.

These odors provide clues about our identity and our health to those in our communities, even though many of us might prefer to rely on language and optics. The first thing our noses tell us about those around us is their odor print, the unique collection of aromas that distinguish one person from another, and that allows dogs, for example, to track specific individuals. Parents learn the odor of our newborns just hours after birth and newborns scootch preferentially towards the odor of breast pads worn by their birth mothers rather than those of other women.

These are all classed in the same category because they all place unfamiliar substances into your sweat because of a failure in the body's normal processes. Kidney failure puts urea into your sweat excretions, diabetes puts in acetone yes,the stuff in nail polish remover , and liver failure means an uptick in methyl mercaptan.

All of these things smell faintly different, which means they can be used as diagnostic tools, and, as you can guess, they're all medical issues, so if you detect any of those smells, it's important to talk to your doctor ASAP. A study found that up to a third of people with unexplained body odor might have a rare genetic disorder that fiddles with your metabolism, and is known as trimethylaminuria, or, charmingly enough, "the fishy-smelling syndrome".

The basic problem for people with this condition is that they lack the enzyme that breaks down a compound called trimethyamine, and so it builds up and comes out through the pores.

The smell? You guessed it: fishy. One of the unfortunate things that holds true about body odor is that if you're prone to sweating more, you're also likely to smell more.

It's just the nature of the beast. And one particular thyroid issue, Grave's disease, is associated with excessive sweating. Grave's disease is basically a case of an overactive thyroid , where the thyroid reacts to an immune system malfunction by going into overdrive.

Thyroids are responsible for regulating the metabolism, so one going the speed of a race car can contribute to shakes, rapid heartbeat, poor sleep, and, yep, buckets of sweat. Thyroid-related sweating often tends to happen at night, which, incidentally, is also associated with serious infections , located most commonly in the heart valves or bones. The equation of more sweat making more odor is, unfortunately, pretty foolproof, and the sweat can also be caused by medication side effects.

Some analgesic pain medications, SSRI antidepressants, hormonal medications, and heart-based drugs have excessive sweating as part of their known catalogue of side-effects, so you'll have to be prepared for a bit of body odor increase if you're on a course of any of those meds. Hormonal shifts are a big cause of sweating increases, from perimenopause the period right before menopause to the early teen years. Although trimethylamine-N-oxide is odorless, if a person cannot digest trimethylamine properly, the body may release it through sweat and cause body odor.

This is because they can create sulfur-like compounds when digested, which can react with sweat and cause odor. A person may sweat due to stress. The International Hyperhidrosis Society states that the apocrine glands are responsible for producing stress-related sweat. Sweat from the apocrine glands is thicker and contains more proteins and lipids. When this type of sweat sits on the skin and mixes with bacteria, it can create a smell. Decreasing estrogen levels during menopause may cause sweating, which can increase odor if it mixes with bacteria on the skin.

To prevent the body from using protein as energy after exercise, which may cause their sweat to smell like ammonia, a person can increase the amount of carbohydrates in their diet. Whole grains, vegetables, fruits, and beans are healthy sources of carbohydrates.

Additionally, if a person notices that certain foods, such as fish or dairy, make their sweat smell like ammonia, they can reduce their intake of those foods or remove them from their diet. Increased water intake can dilute sweat and make its odor less noticeable.

A person can use deodorants to cover up the ammonia smell from sweat. They can also try antiperspirants, which block the sweat glands and stop sweating from happening.

This can reduce the amount of sweat on the skin that mixes with bacteria and produces odor. A person can try changing their clothes more frequently to keep their skin dry and free of bacteria that can react with sweat and cause odor. Antibacterial soap can fight bacteria on the skin.

This will keep the skin clean and fight any odor from bacteria mixing with sweat. Antifungal creams or powders can also help a person reduce their risk of fungal infections. If a person notices they sweat more with stress, they can try evaluating the sources of stress in their life. If they are able to reduce their stress levels, they may sweat less and reduce any odors that were occurring because of their stress. A person whose sweat smells like ammonia should look out for symptoms of an underlying condition.

If their urine has a strong ammonia smell, this may be a sign of diabetes. If a person notices blood in their urine, or that their urine is foamy, this may be a sign of kidney disease. Fungal infections may cause rashes, sores, or blisters. A person should contact a doctor if they think they may have a fungal skin infection.

To help control body odor, the International Hyperhidrosis Society recommends :. A person can also contact a doctor to discuss the following medical treatments:. Microwave thermolysis is a treatment that uses microwave energy to stop the sweat glands from working properly.

A study found that microwave thermolysis was an effective treatment for sweat that produced odors. The U. Botox can be an effective treatment for hyperhidrosis as it blocks the chemical that signals for the sweat glands to produce sweat. Botox injections can be effective in stopping underarm sweating for months, and possibly up to 14 months.

The International Hyperhidrosis Society recommends antiperspirants to help control excessive sweating and body odor.