Four Weeks Without Soap Or Shampoo 250
An anonymous reader writes "A biotech start-up from Massachusetts has an unusual product: a bottle full of bacteria you're supposed to spray onto your face. The bacteria is Nitrosomonas eutropha, and it's generally harmless. Its main use is that it oxidizes ammonia, and the start-up's researchers suspect it used to commonly live on human skin before we began washing it away with soaps and other cleaners. Such bacteria are an area of heavy research in biology right now. Scientists know that the gut microbiome is important to proper digestion, and they're trying to figure out if an external microbiome can be similarly beneficial to skin. A journalist for the NY Times volunteered to test the product, which involved four straight weeks of no showers, no soap, no shampoo, and no deodorant. The sprayed-on bacteria quickly colonized her skin, along with other known types of bacteria — and hundreds of unknown (but apparently harmless) strains. She reported improvements to her skin and complexion, and described how the bacteria worked to curtail (but not eliminate) the body odor caused by not washing. At the end of the experiment, all of the N. eutropha vanished within three showers."
To maximize bacteria (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Control Groups (Score:5, Informative)
Where are the control groups? Shouldn't there also be at least a few of these: 1) One group that showers daily and uses the spray. 2) One group that showers daily and sprays plain water. 3) One group that doesn't shower for 4 weeks and sprays plain water.
Number 3 is almost required for any accurate study and I would think it would the other 2 wouldn't hurt either.
Reading the article, she was subject 26 of who knows how many. For all we know, she was in the control group, or there may have been separate control groups present. The article recaps her personal experience, not the complete conditions for the experiment. Maybe with the initial findings, they'll do multiple rounds with different variables as you suggest above.
Re:Does shower mean soap? (Score:5, Informative)
Using soap in general isn't something I feel is needed since a regular rinsing leaves me non smelly.
According to your nose you may be non-smelly. Perhaps you're like a coworker of mine that could not smell BO. He didn't think he needed to wash regularly or use deodorant since he couldn't smell himself. Being an avid runner, he STANK most of the time; I mean he reeked to the point of making people's eyes water.
You really don't want to be 'that guy'. You might want to get a second opinion from an unbiased source (not "friends and family").
Re:Poor example (Score:5, Informative)
4 weeks= 1 ovary cycle. Think about it.
Re:Control Groups (Score:5, Informative)
Where are the control groups? Shouldn't there also be at least a few of these:
Perhaps I missed this, but it doesn't seem that TFA is reporting official results of a study -- it's just the anecdotal description of somebody who participated in a study that's been going on. All she says is: "I was Subject 26 in testing a living bacterial skin tonic." I don't think there's anything in TFA that mentions what control groups there may have been, nor does it imply that there were not any.
This is just one subject's experience that she decided to blog about... so should we really be questioning the validity of the study or its design when she doesn't even discuss methodology (and perhaps doesn't even know the details, since she was... you know... a PARTICIPANT in the study)?
About the only thing in TFA that suggests anything about research design is this:
A regime of concentrated AO+ caused a hundredfold decrease of Propionibacterium acnes, often blamed for acne breakouts. And the company says that diabetic mice with skin wounds heal more quickly after two weeks of treatment with a formulation of AOB.
Soon, AOBiome will file an Investigational New Drug Application with the F.D.A. to request permission to test more concentrated forms of AOB for the treatment of diabetic ulcers and other dermatologic conditions. "Itâ(TM)s very, very easy to make a quack therapy; to put together a bunch of biological links to convince someone that somethingâ(TM)s true," Heywood said. "What would hurt us is trying to sell anything ahead of the data."
"A hundredfold decrease," "wounds heal more quickly" -- these imply that there are comparison groups. And if they are applying to do testing with the FDA, they're going to have to do control groups.
Seriously -- what is it with Slashdot and the "But didn't they think of doing a real science experiment, with, you know, data and stuff" comments? This is a link to a blog post by subject in a study. You want details? Wait until an actual study comes out.
But if this company is planning on getting its stuff approved as a medical treatment or marketing it on its particular benefits, it would actually be incredibly counterproductive to design poor experiments, since they wouldn't allow them to refine or further develop their products.
Do you really think these people are idiots?
Comment removed (Score:5, Informative)
Re: "four straight weeks of no showers, no soap" (Score:5, Informative)
Was the reduction of body stench independently verified? Maybe she just got used to it.
Absolutely possible. This is just her anecdotal report. She has other anecdotal reports in TFA, though:
Jamas, a quiet, serial entrepreneur with a doctorate in biotechnology, incorporated N. eutropha into his hygiene routine years ago; today he uses soap just twice a week. The chairman of the company's board of directors, Jamie Heywood, lathers up once or twice a month and shampoos just three times a year. The most extreme case is David Whitlock, the M.I.T.-trained chemical engineer who invented AO+. He has not showered for the past 12 years. He occasionally takes a sponge bath to wash away grime but trusts his skin's bacterial colony to do the rest. I met these men. I got close enough to shake their hands, engage in casual conversation and note that they in no way conveyed a sense of being "unclean" in either the visual or olfactory sense.
And, honestly, it makes some sense on an intuitive level. Perspiration doesn't really have an odor on its own -- the odor comes with the bacteria and such that start growing in the minutes and hours after perspiration.
If we get rid of all of them every day, we're going to select for certain strains of fast-growing bacteria.
If we instead let things "ferment" over weeks or months, we'll probably select for other types of bacteria, which tend to be adapted to our bodies, rather than whatever random fast-growing stuff happens to land there after a daily shower. Undoubtedly, the odors produced with a hygiene regimen change will be DIFFERENT.
And, since soap and daily showers are a relatively recent invention, one would think that humans would be less likely to find the build-up of long-term bacterial colony odors offensive, since from an evolutionary perspective, natural body odor shouldn't drive potential mates away. And it's therefore more likely that we'd be adapted to not care about such odors (of even sometimes be attracted to them -- historically, we have lots of accounts of people who describe natural body odor as a significant aphrodisiac).
I'm not saying all of this is true. But it at least makes sense that a DIFFERENCE in body odor seems likely when bacterial colonies are allowed to establish themselves over time and be selected for in daily body excretions.
Kind of like trying to create a sourdough starter: if you just mix together flour and water and let it sit for a few days, you have a high likelihood of mold or undesirable things forming over time. If you just empty the container, scrub it out, and try again, you're likely to have similar results. But if you let it sit over a period of weeks and gradually feed it, eventually you'll select for specific bacteria and yeasts. And after a while, you end up with robust bacterial colonies that won't likely mold or grow nasty stuff -- because the microorganisms create an environment conductive to their own growth, rather than the undesirable stuff.
Re:Poor example (Score:4, Informative)
Re:PH (Score:5, Informative)
Much of body odor comes from short-chain fatty acids, produced when various bacteria break down skin oils. Baking soda turns those acids into salts, which don't smell nearly as much. However, it can also saponify your skin oils, so it's hard on your skin if you use too much.