Posted on 09/05/2015 1:58:32 PM PDT by Red Badger
BOSTON (CBS) – You’ve heard of taking probiotics for a healthy gut, but what about literally spraying live bacteria on your skin? As Dr. Mallika Marshall reports, a local company thinks it’s a good idea for overall health, and plans to prove it.
“I have not taken a shower in over 12 years,” says Dave Whitlock, a chemical engineer and MIT grad who says he doesn’t miss bathing at all. “No one did clinical trials on people taking showers every day. So what’s the basis for assuming that that is a healthy practice.”
In fact, what Whitlock does believe is healthy is restoring good bacteria to our skin that our ancestors enjoyed long ago and that has slowly been stripped away by excessive cleaning. To prove his theory, he helped found AOBiome, a company based in Cambridge, MA.
“We’ve confused clean with sterile,” says Jasmina Aganovic, the General Manager of Consumer Products at AOBiome. She says as humans, we need to reconnect with our environment. “We’ve taken the dirt out of our lives. We don’t spend as much time outdoors as we used to, even little children,” she explains.
To add a little dirt back into our lives, AOBiome has created Mother Dirt, specifically the AO+ Mist containing live bacteria that is sprayed directly on the skin twice a day. It has no odor and feels like water.
“Our users are able to reduce their dependence on conventional products,” says Aganovic. “Examples include cutting out or cutting down on deodorant, cutting out or cutting down on moisturizers.” There’s a Mother Dirt shampoo and cleanser that don’t contain bacteria but Aganovic says won’t interfere with it either.
And while Whitlock still doesn’t shower, he does use Mother Dirt every day and hopes the rest of the world will join him. “I would like a billion people a day to use this,” he says.
While AOBiome believes in the health benefits of these live bacteria, they’re not making any scientific claims right now but will soon begin clinical trials on inflammatory skin conditions, like acne.
The Mother Dirt products became available in July of this year. For more information, go to www.motherdirt.com
Dave Whitlock (WBZ-TV) "I have not taken a shower in over 12 years,” .......................
I think a large factor in the increase of food allergies are people try to avoid germs to the point that their immune systems never get a chance to develop. It’s like a muscle: Use It or Lose It.
He looks like a mad scientist.
True, a study a few years back showed that kids raised in the country, around animals and lots of dirt were far less likely to have allergies than city kids.................
Probably smells like one too..................
If that is the guy..... Remember that human connection is also healthy and he ain’t getting any. Ugh.
It is true that we need to connect with nature and to stop putting chemicals on our skin. But there is nothing wrong with being reasonably clean. Be like a child. Get dirty, then clean up. There are bad bacteria too.
I like Tesla’s approach better.
440 volts. Now, before I try it tonight, was it AC or DC?
Am I supposed to do it the shower?
Decisions, decisions!
I’d be happy if they’d invent a spray so I wouldn’t have to shave...........................
In Boston where most people stink from either bacteria or cologne, how would one tell if this spray actually works?
Interesting. The first time I went to Europe, in the mid 50s, most of the English took baths about once a week, and the French didn’t seem to take baths more than once a month if at all. And back in the Renaissance, not even the nobility took baths. They just used perfume.
I’m very much in favor of probiotics for the gut. But I hadn’t thought of it for the skin. Actually, I think it makes sense—except that you would inevitably have B.O., and probably put off most of your former friends. It would be difficult to do, unless everyone else decided to move in the same direction.
Hmm. We need a new movement. “B.O. is Good for You!” But I think I’ll let someone else lead the way.
He probably has no trouble getting a seat on the bus.
Trust me, Whitlock (I wonder if that W should be an S) is not a scientist. But he is mad.
“That’s why I wear… Tuna Fish Sandwich! I put a Tuna Fish Sandwich under each arm, maybe one or two behind the ears, and I don’t smell like any other guy! And it’s economical too, because the smell lasts for four or five days.” - Steve Martin
“I’m very much in favor of probiotics for the gut.”
The best probiotic is eating your own discharge.
It’s sad if the gentleman possibly has HR problems. If his technology really works, and no offensive odors, then think of all the water that it would save.
“If you are worried about your normal gut bacteria, be reassured. We are always consuming fecal flora in the food you eat and the water you drink. The food, your spouse, and the world, is covered in a thin patina of gastrointestinal bacteria, so you are always repleting your bacterial flora orally. Bon appetite! Families tend have similar bacterial strains. My gut flora more closely resemble my parents than my wife’s, suggesting there may be a genetic predisposition for which strains of bacteria make up your gut. When you give probiotics to normal humans you are introducing, relative to the number and quantity of bacteria that are already there, a small amount of foreign bacteria. Continuing our metaphor, it is like trying to put a putting green in an Amazonian rain forest. For normal people, it makes no microbiologic sense to take probiotics.”
https://www.sciencebasedmedicine.org/probiotics/
I went to Europe in 2000 and again in 2001 on business. My boss told me to pack wash cloth with me.
Why? I asked.
Because the hotels don’t supply one, he said.
We stayed for a time in a B&B in Germany and the maid was also the bartender / waitress downstairs in the restaurant part of the building.
She said, “You Americans are very clean people. You take a bath every night!”
How did she know?
It was because every morning she had to put in new clean towels in our rooms.
She said he husband only takes a bath on Saturday nights and even then she has to ‘remind’ him to...........................
Just 12 years? Amateur.
Yaelle, I'm surprised that you would make a comment like that ... and when I stop laughing I'm going to give you a squinty-eyed look.
!-{
LOL
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