Why I do NOT think this condition is metabolic after all

 

 I just made a post a few days ago [on reddit] about having medical researchers try to get to the bottom of this class of conditions, and I said how the liver is the most likely culprit. I did some more thinking, and I came up with a major new way of thinking about this issue. The case I will make here is that this is actually not a class of metabolic disorders, but rather the body is intentionally creating the smell for the same reasons it creates apocrine sweat and underarm/pubic hair to amplify smells - it smelled good to people 500,000 years ago, but the body has not done away with it yet. If correct, this changes the direction that medical researchers need to go.

I want to say at the start that I am NOT a doctor or scientist or medical researcher. What follows are my opinions, and they are meant to be debated and discussed, not just blindly accepted as proven facts.

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EVIDENCE AGAINST THIS CONDITION BEING A METABOLIC DISORDER:

The true form of TMAU is indeed a metabolic disorder. I am not a true expert on this, but from everything I have read the symptoms show up shortly after birth for TMAU1 and shortly after certain forms of liver damage happening later in life for TMAU2. All documented metabolic disorders that someone is born with work the same way: the problem has to be identified immediately after birth and it has to be something that is not created internally and is only taken in through certain foods.

Otherwise the thing that can't be metabolized will build up in the blood and organs including the brain in a matter of several months, at most. This leads to brain damage, coma, and death. Putting aside the true form of TMAU (most people who say they have TMAU are really using that term to describe a general malodor condition rather than the true form of TMAU), the vast majority of people report this problem showing up sometime shortly after the start of puberty.

There is simply no way that something that can't be metabolized could safely build up in someone for 13-15 years before the sweat/pores/breath would be required to remove it. One of the major changes in puberty is the activation of the apocrine sweat glands, which are the ones that for normal people create an unpleasant, and distinctive 'apocrine' smell. Underarm and pubic hair develops for the purpose of amplifying the smells of sweat.

How can it be a coincidence that malodor conditions just happen to develop around this time, if its really a metabolic disorder? There is no reason that aporcine sweat, as opposed to regular eccrine sweat should be needed to remove toxins from the body. My basic theory is that there must be odor causing things that start at puberty beyond apocrine sweat and underarm/pubic hair. If correct, science is not aware of what these are, but the path to a cure for TMAU like conditions lies through discovering them, and hopefully they can be shut off or removed/destroyed.

The traditional theory of malodor conditions has been that the apocrine sweat glands are responsible, since these activate at puberty when this condition normally starts. The more current theory is that this is a metabolic disorder, but I am making the case that the former idea may actually be closer to the truth, but it must be something other than the apocrine glands at work here.

Here is some more evidence that this class of conditions is not metabolic in nature: Doctors have been able to clamp down the nerve that controls underarm sweating for at least 20-30 years now. This has been normally done for hyperhydrosis (huge amounts of sweat with no smell to it) but it has also been done for malodor condition (bromhidrosis or TMAU or whatever you want to call it), and more recently botox was used to shrink the underarm sweat glands, and now there is something called Miradry to destroy them. The point is that in all this time there is likely no record of anyone dying as a result of the body losing its ability to sweat out toxins.

If this was a metabolic disorder there would be a record of this happening, as the problem substance built up in the blood and brain when the body lost the ability to sweat it out. Compensatory sweating, where the sweat comes out from somewhere else is common, but that takes a few months, during which time the thing that is normally sweated out would be building up in the body, but there are apparently no reports of anyone being harmed from this. The compensatory sweating may be explainable simply because the body issues an instruction to create certain types of sweat causing the odor issue, and then it finds the sweat glands it needs are missing, so it looks for an alternative pathway to releasing the sweat.

Another thing is that I am sure there have been people with TMAU like malodor condition who have either died and donated a liver or other organs, or else received such an organ through a transplant. I have never heard about anyone receiving a liver from someone with a malodor condition and also inheriting the condition themselves. I have never heard about a cure in the reverse case either, where someone with the condition gets an organ transplant for other reasons, and is cured of the condition as well.

Another bit of evidence is that there is no evidence of any kind of physical damage to anyone from this condition, which would be very surprising if this is really an uncontrolled metabolic disorder, and the body is forced to use the sweat/pores/breath to prevent a deadly buildup.

If malodor conditions are the result of non-deadly metabolic disorders, than why does the body have to remove the substances in the first place? Also, realize that anything and everything will become deadly if it builds up enough in the body. I am pretty sure that the TMA that is not able to be converted into TMAO in the disorder TMAU would become deadly if it built up long enough, and this is why the body removes it any way it can.

Another thing is that serious medical disorders involving organs and major body systems become more common with age and only rarely affect teens, but TMAU like disorders mostly start at puberty. Think about the average age of someone needing heart surgery for example.

Here is a bit of evidence I bet you haven't heard before: a long time I read in some online medical text that malodor condition tend to 'decline into senility'. So when you are old and senile, and its too late to matter, apparently these conditions decline in severity or go away. I remember this because of how infuriating it was, but this piece of evidence points to to the issue being something that the body is doing intentionally. This would be likely for the same reasons it creates apocrine sweat and underarm/pubic hair - largely for reasons of sexual attraction, which is something that would cease to matter when you are old and senile. A metabolic disorder shouldn't vanish when someone becomes old and senile.

The main evidence that TMAU like disorders are metabolic is that they are so affected by diet. When normal people go vegan, they usually report their need for deodorant goes away because their underarm sweat smells much cleaner. The smells in human sweat start with animal products that are consumed and end up in there, and then they are later acted on my bacteria on the skin, and the waste products from that create the smell. Removing the animal products (and spices) removes the ingredients in the sweat needed to create a smell. So if the body of someone with a malodor condition is giving an instruction to create some kind of sweat with a smell to it, depriving the body of the ingredients needed for this by restricting the diet reduces the problem. This doesn't mean its really a metabolic disorder though, even though diet affects it.

ALTERNATIVE EXPLANATION TO THIS BEING A METABOLIC DISORDER:

Above, I tried to make the case why TMAU like disorders may not actually be metabolic after all. The reason that human sweat sometimes has a smell is that a very long time ago (maybe hundreds of thousands of years ago) these smells were found to be attractive, back in caveman/cavewoman days. At some point this changed dramatically, but these odor creating mechanisms have still remained.

My basic theory is that there are odor creating mechanisms beyond just the apocrine sweat glands and underarm/pubic hair, and that the cure to this condition may lie in understanding and stopping/destroying/removing these mechanisms.

If what I am saying is correct, than it may be that the fecal smells that most people report were actually quite alluring 500,000 years ago, and there are small numbers of people today who still have these smells, similar to how there are tiny numbers of people today who actually have small tails. Its also possible that there is some odor creating mechanism that has gone haywire.

How could a fecal smell ever be alluring? The fact is that even today, it extremely easy for this smell to become sexualized (when talking about females at least), in the same way that a genital area smell is inherently a sexualized thing. It is very easily sexualized because it comes from an intimate area. It's not at all hard to imagine how at some early point in human history (or in prehistoric times) a male would find this smell coming from a female to be alluring. I will not go into whether this may be happening today as well, but its certainly something you can think about yourself. Think about how the fish/rotting fish smell of true TMAU likely followed a similar pattern, explaining why the genes for that may have been widespread in prehistoric times, and have not died out today.

Something like 80% of people with TMAU like conditions are female, and from my time reading comments from sufferers on youtube, and looking at their profile pictures, I have learned something: strikingly beautiful females are VERY disproportionately represented in this community. Some of the most beautiful females I have ever seen in my life were ones posting youtube comments about their terrible TMAU experiences. I am not going to post any links to these user profiles - but take my word for it. Females with the kind of looks that may have a rarity of around 1 in 1,000 people are actually common in this community. Look up the 'Letty's Life' channel on youtube for a good example of this (and a very good TMAU channel as well).

What does this say? I used to think the genes for extremely good looks went hand in hand with the genes for this condition, because its needed to overcome the difficulties in dating with something like this. The way I now see it is that first, it makes much more sense for the body to try and create an alluring smell in a female than a male, and this would explain the roughly 80% female population here. (think about the concept of perfume) The alternative explanation was that its much easier for females to date/marry/have kids than males with this, and so if certain underlying conditions are heavily male or female, that would explain it. It also makes sense for the body to try and create an alluring smell in a particularly attractive female - kind of like a built in perfume. Hundreds of thousands of years ago, this 'built in perfume' probably worked great, but not today in the modern world, where the smell is simply seen as offensive.

OTHER RELATED TOPICS AND CONCLUSION:

For myself, I talked in other posts about how I solved my problem a long time ago, and I did not have a fecal smell in my case. In my case, it was its own unique, but clearly negative smell, that was the result of not normally processing the nutrient carnitine.

By the way, there is a very important question about FBO (fecal body odor) I have not seen being addressed: is this truly a 'poop smell' or is it better described as an an 'anal area smell' for most people? The answer to this has truly profound implications for how people you encounter perceive the smell.

I will logging out of here soon, and here is a related topic I want to bring up while I am here: the extraordinary fact that there is compelling evidence that it might actually be the case that some people can smell people with TMAU like disorders, and other people can't. Let me explain why I think this is indeed possibly (not definitely) the case:

This class of conditions has been around for all of human history, at least from the point these smells went from being alluring to being offensive, and it affects every country in the world to at least some degree. It has a profound impact on the ability of someone to have intimate relationships and pass down their genes through children. This means it has been subject to massive evolutionary pressure at this point.

The malodor conditions that are truly universally offensive probably largely died out a long time ago, as the genes didn't get passed down. There were probably extremely rare cases where a mutation caused a malodor condition to not be detectable for some people. These would have been cases where the genes where often passed down as a result, and these rare mutations started to dominate over the much more common versions that everyone could smell. This is the same basic idea of how covid evolved/evolves.

So, this condition is similar to a virus in that it is subject to evolutionary pressures that demand its genes can be passed down. You don't encounter inanimate objects that some people can smell and others can't, unless the scent is very subtle, because they are not subject to any evolutionary pressures. Its quite possible that this concept applies to the mental/emotional traits that sufferers tend to have, so that they can function well enough to pass down their genes. There is a hopeful message here, which is that if there was no way for you to have a decent life, the genes that create your condition would have probably died out thousands of years ago, rather than being passed down. It is truly a MIRACLE that a community of people who are unable to even handle sitting in a room with strangers are often able to get married and have their own families. Without a doubt, this is the one true miracle about TMAU like disorders - but people seem to take this for granted.

If what I say about this not actually being a metabolic disorder is correct, than that dictates the path that medical researchers need to follow to hopefully identity what part of the body is ultimately responsible for this, and hopefully it can be dealt with, leading to a cure.

I want to restate that I am not a doctor or scientist or medical researcher, and the above are just my own opinions.

 

EDIT: I want to add a few more things: The first is that if this really was a metabolic disorder, I really think that there would negative physical effects beyond the odor issue. People would likely experience things like seizures, severe joint paint, severe headaches, very low energy and all sorts of other things like this if there really was an unaddressed metabolic disorder, such as some kind of serious liver malfunction. People (and myself) often report IBS issues alongside this condition, but other than that I have never once heard about any physical ailments accompanying a TMAU like condition.

This is a strong piece of evidence that indeed this is not a metabolic disorder, but rather your body is intentionally trying to create an alluring aroma (that stopped being alluring tens of thousands of years ago) just like with apocrine sweat and underarm hair (which simply exists to amplify the smell of underarm sweat). If this was really a metabolic disorder, it would probably look something like 'Gulf War Syndrome', where people would be reporting numerous debilitating ailments completely separate from the odor issue.

Now, the true form of TMAU is a metabolic disorder, but the body is able to quickly get all the TMA out of the body before it can build up in the blood and organs and cause harm. This is not normally the case for metabolic disorders - usually the body can't clear the problem substance out enough to prevent a harmful or fatal buildup of it.

There is another topic I want to add to: I mentioned how strikingly beautiful females are very disproportionately represented in the community of people with TMAU like disorders. There is a second component I did not mention: in addition to being strikingly beautiful, they usually have a very powerful sexual energy that you can just feel. Again, I am not going to post links to peoples youtube profiles, but you can take my word on this. These kind of females are VERY rare among the general population, but are very common in this community (this is based on seeing peoples profile images on youtube for a while now, when they make comments about their TMAU experiences).

Here is how this ties into the origins of this condition: the most common reported smell is a fecal smell, (its not really clear if this is best described as a 'poop smell' or as an 'anal area smell', and the distinction is huge). Its actually not quite correct that a fecal/anal smell is inherently offensive and foul and that's all there is to it. It can be offensive, but it can also easily be a sexually alluring smell, if we are talking about a straight male smelling this from a female. This is not something talked about at dinner parties, but I can assure you this is true.

So, the smell can be either offensive or sexually alluring. In order for it to be alluring it (probably) first must be coming from a female and not a male. Secondly, the more attractive the female, the more likely the smell will be perceived by straight males as alluring rather than simply foul and offensive. The puzzle pieces fit perfectly here, in terms of explaining why strikingly beautiful females are so disproportionately represented in this community, where people so frequently report fecal smells.

It sounds like when a female is strikingly beautiful and has that strong sexual energy I mentioned, the brain/body sometimes concludes that a fecal/anal smell will make her smell sexually alluring to others, rather than foul. It is easy to see how in prehistoric times this was the case, and I will let everyone wonder about if this is still the case today to some degree. The true form of TMAU involves some kind of fish or rotting fish smell, so logically the same ideas apply, that this is really a sexual smell, and this is why the genes for this have been passed down for many thousands of years. The fecal smells so often reported here, and the smell of true TMAU are both the smells of intimate areas, and I don't think this is just a coincidence.

The above idea has major implications for how people with fecal odors are truly perceived by others. I don't think the idea that this smell is today simply perceived as foul and offensive by everyone else is all there is to it. Logically, there must a significant percentage of straight males who are not simply disgusted when they walk by a female and detect such a smell. Remember that they will assume the smell is coming from the anal area, it will not occur to anyone that the smell is actually coming from the sweat/pores. Even if the smell itself is truly offensive, the fact that people will perceive it as coming from an intimate area complicates the issue of how people truly perceive it. 

People may, or may not, be horrified by the idea that at least some people are having the opposite of a disgust reaction to this, and are actually getting turned on by it (straight males encountering females with this condition mostly). I thought about this a bit, and I think its important that people have the best information available about how random people are likely really perceiving the smell.

I think the best bet for a helpful treatment right now is to look at using activated charcoal fabrics, and other odor absorbing fabrics to make simple shirts and possibly pants to help control the issue. See my profile for the post I made on this topic - this is what I would do if I still had my problem. The idea of using neoprene or something to create a seal around the air spaces in the shirt (arm and neck and lower torso openings) is something to also look at.

The ideas I talked about in this post have changed my own perception of my condition, back when I was dealing with it. I now think that instead of a metabolic disorder, it was really my bodies extremely misguided attempt to provide me with an alluring scent.