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Showing posts from March, 2025

Diet to possibly solve or improve fecal odor - a low sulfur diet

  I recently made a post [on reddit] where I mentioned that the worlds (now deceased) top TMAU (and human odor) expert said that he thought that fecal smells are probably actually sulfur smells. He mentioned that he has studied human fecal material, and that most of the smells are different sulfur smells. This post is extending on the ideas of that post, so please take a look at my prior post first if the topic of FBO is relevant to you: https://www.reddit.com/r/TMAU/comments/1erhgsl/around_50_of_people_diagnosed_with_tmau_complain/ This post will cover the idea of a low sulfur diet to try and control this problem. I need to emphasize right at the start that this is not a proven idea to work, and nobody really knows how well it will work or not. However, I do think that this is the only plausible path to solving FBO at the root, which is why I would certainly try this if this is what I had. I solved my problem a long time ago through a vegan detox diet, and I did not have a fe...

Around 50% of people diagnosed with TMAU complain of fecal odor in study - Fecal odor may be sulfur odor according to top expert - concrete evidence of sulfur odor in TMAU

  There was a survey done where 90% of people were diagnosed with TMAU, and around 50% complain of a fecal odor. See this video from 29:36: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wB3zN5JkD2I&list=PLx3aGntejtWVlKDa22-qsbgdG0bgx0vwK&index=7 The video is put out by credible people (see very start of the video for credentials) and discusses the survey they did. The point is that if you have FBO there is a good chance you actually have TMAU! Only 10% of people with TMAU have a bad fish smell, because TMA smells only smells like fish at very high concentrations. At lower concentrations it smells either simply offensive or garbage-like. Only around 3.5% of people who are diagnosed with TMAU complain about a fish smell, which also means that only around 1/3 of people with a fish odor are aware they smell like fish. For details see: https://www.tesble.com/10.1016/j.amjmed.2011.05.030 Also see my recent posts for more information on this topic. Around 1/3 of people with a malodor comp...

New idea to have doctors be able to detect the odor - request a stress test to work up a sweat

  I had a post the other day with an idea of having some member of the medical community spend up to a week or two with a person so they can observe the odor, since it is likely intermittent in nature. I thought a bit more, and I have a new, and much easier idea, that was largely inspired by a reply to my post. The idea is to request a stress test. A stress test is when someone runs on a treadmill, and a doctor monitors their heart looking for any issues. This is usually done when someone complains of chest pains. This would be a simplified version, where the heart does not need to be monitored, and the whole point is for the person to work up a sweat so the doctor can actually detect the odor. I have talked before about how for most people, it is likely their sweat that smells bad. The correct medical term for this would be Bromhidrosis, not TMAU, as I have said in an earlier post about visiting a doctor about this. A stress test to work up a sweat should allow the doctor to...

I found a medical source that explains how FBO can manifest - its a possible form of bad smelling underarm sweat

  I have been going through a book on the subject of abnormal human body odor written in 1992 by two Japanese doctors. I was very surprised at just how good the information in the book is, even with how old it is. Link to the book: https://sci-hub.se/https://link.springer.com/book/10.1007/978-4-431-66908-1 Here is what it has to say about fecal odors: (from page 36) According to Leyden et al. (1981) common axillary odor is generated by aerobic diphtheroids, and incubating micro- cocci with apocrine sweat produce an odor akin to that of isovaleric acid. Short-chain fatty acids and ammonia are the major odor components produced by apocrine sweat that has been degraded by bacteria, but other unidentified sub- stances may be present as well. That could explain the various odors, ranging from sweaty, rancid, and fecal to sour and sweet, that are sometimes detected, indicating individual variations in the chemical composition of axillary perspiration. The ax...

It is extremely important to establish what part of the body is responsible for the problem. This is how to distinguish Bromhidrosis from TMAU or other causes

  The body has two main types of sweat glands. These are the apocrine and eccrine glands. The apocrine glands are normally the ones that create odors, and are normally the ones responsible for Bromhidrosis, which means someone has abnormally bad smelling sweat, that hygiene can't fix. These glands are primarily located in the underarms, genital area, anal area, and in the area of the breasts. It turns out they also exist in the scalp and certain areas of the face, but this is not usually mentioned in medical texts. If the odor is coming purely or mostly from the underarms that indicates Apocrine Bromhidrosis, which is by far the most common form of it. Axillary Bromhidrosis would be the fancy way of saying that you have abnormally bad smelling underarm sweat. The axilla refers to the underarm area. The eccrine sweat glands are all over the body, and I confirmed this includes the underarms. It is possible to have Eccrine Bromhidrosis, but this is far less common than Apocrine B...

It is important that people realize that what most people are describing is Bromhidrosis and not actually TMAU

  Have you ever wondered why its called TMAU? This is shorthand for Trimethylaminuria . This is an extremely rare disorder where the body can't convert TMA into TMAO, and the result is a rotting fish smell. It is controlled with a low choline diet to minimize TMA intake, and usually will start at birth if it is TMAU type-1, and usually sometime well after puberty if it is TMAU type-2, since that form is the result of liver damage, and it starts after the damage occurs. The term 'Bromhidrosis' is greek for 'foul smelling sweat'. TMAU is really a specific form of bromhidrosis. I used to follow a yahoo group (yahoo groups have since been shut down) that was very similar to this subreddit. At this time (2005 was the last time I looked there) the terms 'Bromhidrosis' and 'TMAU' were clearly kept separate. People only said they had TMAU if they had a rotting fish smell and responded to the low choline diet, and everyone else said they had bromhidrosis....

It turns out that TMAU is much less rare than thought and that indeed its often not a fish odor - I think people should get the TMAU urine test done

  If you check out my profile [on reddit] to see my last couple posts, one of them examines where the 1/40,000 figure for the incidence of the true form of TMAU (Trimethylaminuria) comes from. It turns out that this number varies widely between different populations that have been measured. For New Guinea, the figure for the severe form of inherited TMAU-1 is 1/400 people. My post explains how these numbers can be accurately calculated. This is not even counting TMAU-2 which is more common than TMAU-1. In addition, I have found medical documentation that only the most severe 10% of TMAU cases involve a bad fish odor, the rest are either just generically offensive, or involve a 'garbage-like' smell. Link: https://nyaspubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1196/annals.1384.011 (the link is only actually loading the PDF file some of the time for some reason). The source for this is the late Dr. George Preti, who was the worlds leading expert on TMAU, and had an odor lab with...