Body Odor: Causes, Changes, Underlying Diseases & Treatment

What is body odor?

Body odor is what you smell when your sweat comes in contact with the bacteria on your skin. Sweat itself doesn’t smell, but when the bacteria on your skin mix with your sweat, it causes an odor. Body odor can smell sweet, sour, tangy or like onions. The amount you sweat doesn’t necessarily impact your body odor. That’s why a person can have an unpleasant body odor but not be sweaty. Conversely, a person can sweat excessively but not smell. This is because body odor is a result of the type of bacteria on your skin and how that bacteria interacts with sweat, not the sweat itself.

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Sweating is the secretion of fluids by sweat glands onto your skin’s surface. There are two types of sweat glands: eccrine and apocrine. Apocrine glands are responsible for producing body odor.

Eccrine glands

Eccrine glands secrete sweat directly to the surface of your skin. As the sweat evaporates, it helps cool your skin and regulate your body temperature. It doesn’t produce a smell. When your body temperature rises due to physical exertion or being hot, the evaporation of sweat from your skin produces a cooling effect. Eccrine glands cover most of your body, including palms and soles.

Apocrine glands

Apocrine glands open up into your hair follicles. Hair follicles are the tube-like structure that keeps your hair in your skin. You can find apocrine glands in your groin and armpits. These glands produce sweat that can smell when it comes in contact with bacteria on your skin. Apocrine glands don’t start working until puberty, which is why you don’t smell body odor in young children.

Sweating is a natural body process, but due to certain foods we eat, hygiene practices or genetics, sweat can have a bad smell once it comes into contact with your skin. Changes in the amount you sweat or the smell of your body odor could indicate a medical condition.

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Who is more likely to experience foul body odor?

Males have more frequent problems with body odor because they have more hair (so they have more apocrine glands). Apocrine glands become active once a person reaches puberty, so body odor doesn’t begin until adolescence.