Enhance Your Health
Health Tip of the Week: Deoderant
The underarm are is one of the most sensitive areas in the body (it is the go to ticklish spot for kids trying to tickle parents!). The underarm area is also where we tend to have the most perspiration come out of our bodies when we are over heated. The defense for sweaty, smelly armpits is underarm deoderant. We use deoderant to keep our underarms dry and block offensive odors.
The problem is that all deoderants (unless they are all natural) contain chemicals to accomplish this feat. The problem with chemicals is that over time they have an ill effect on the body. As mentioned above, the underarm is one of the most sensitive areas in the body and the fact is that the underarm absorbs these chemicals at a much faster rate due to its sensitive nature. On the other side of the coin, deodorants can also make you smell worse.
Antiperspirants affect the bacterial balance in your armpits, which actually leads to more pungent-smelling sweat. Study participants who used antiperspirant for a month saw a definitive increase in Actinobacteria, which are responsible for that foul-smelling armpit odor. In some participants, abstaining from antiperspirant caused the population of Actinobaceria to dwindle into nonexistence.
Research has found higher concentrations of parabens in the breast and axillary area where antiperspirants are usually applied, suggesting they may contribute to the development of breast cancer. Aluminum chloride - the active ingredient in antiperspirants - has been found to act similarly to the way oncogenes work to provide molecular transformations in cancer cells.
Switching to an all-natural deoderant that is aluminum free is the way to go. The goal in life is to avoid as many chemical toxins as possible.
Thought for the Week
It's not so much the smell that bothers me, it's the burning of my eyes! ~ George Carlin (referring to someone's stinkiness).