No matter who you are, you should cover your nose when you smell a bad smell. If it’s your own bad smell, it’s even more embarrassing. A bad smell on your body is more likely to be a sign of illness.
If there is odor on the body, it not only affects the impression left on others, but also may be a sign of disease.
So what are the signs of illness when you have a bad smell on your body?
Smelly ears. Acute suppurative otitis media is caused by suppurative bacterial infection, which is a common complication of cold. Otitis media often occurs in children, the ear into the foreign body or infection, easy to induce otitis media, the main symptoms are ear pain, pus and ear wax odor.
Nasal odor. If you smell a bad smell in the nasal cavity, it may cause inflammation of the mucosa due to the entry of foreign bodies, thus producing a bad smell of nasal mucus. In some patients with atrophic rhinitis, nasal secretions form dry scabs and accumulate for a long time, resulting in odor. If the above two situations are excluded, there may be olfactory hallucinations, which are mostly caused by staying up late and mental tension.
Bad breath. Generally speaking, in addition to eating food with pungent taste, there may be the following situations. People with dental caries, gingivitis, periodontitis and other oral diseases are prone to bacteria, especially anaerobic bacteria, which decompose residues to produce sulfides with rotten taste. Some people have a structure similar to a small house on the side of the esophagus, called a diverticulum. If there is food in this area for a long time, it will ferment and produce odor. Halitosis is common in patients with chronic gastritis, functional dyspepsia and some Helicobacter pylori infections with gastrointestinal diseases. In patients with chronic or suppurative tonsillitis, when there are bacteria, food and even some residues in the tonsils, tonsil stones will produce odor.
Sweat stinks. In addition to foot odor and underarm odor, the root of the thigh, groin and the lower part of the chest are also prone to odor. Sweat itself has no odor, but when it mixes with bacteria on the skin surface, the bacteria will decompose the sweat and produce odor. Bacteria in these parts of the body are easy to accumulate, sweat glands are more, sweat is more difficult to evaporate, so the smell is stronger. Bromhidrosis often becomes obvious when sweating more in summer, and less in autumn and winter, with a slight reduction in taste. If the skin is smelly in a large area, such as the smell of urine, you need to go to the hospital to check for kidney problems. If the body has the smell of rotten apples, it is necessary to check for diabetic ketosis.
How does human body odor come into being?
The odor of human body is produced in the process of human metabolism, which is related to the substances metabolized by human beings. The substances metabolized by the human body can be roughly divided into three categories.
The first is lipids, such as sebum and sweat secreted by the skin. Sebum is what we usually call the oil on the skin surface, which forms a sebum membrane on the skin surface. When sebum is exposed to air for a long time, it will be oxidized to form oxidized lipids, which will emit odor. And we know that sweat smells.
The second category is protein substances, including our excrement. Proteins, when fermented, have a much stronger taste than lipids.
The third category is some sugars, including exhaled carbon dioxide, and some organic acids. All three substances secreted by the human body emit odors.
How many chemical components are contained in these three substances? Some people use modern science and technology to detect human body odor, and the results show that there are more than 700 kinds of substances in body odor. Among them, 149 species were excreted by respiratory system, 152 species in sweat, 298 species in urine and 196 species in feces. The known gases discharged through the skin include more than 20 kinds of chemical components, such as hydrocarbons, aldehydes, acetone, benzene and methane.
Because it contains so many chemical components, the odor of human body varies from person to person, and the intensity of the odor varies from person to person. The same fat oxidation will decompose into different odors for different people. In fact, each of us has a different body odor, which, like our fingerprints, is a unique sign of ourselves. For example, when police dogs pursue criminals, they find out the murderer according to their body odor.