Interesting Facts!! #21

21. Lack of Deodorant!

Most foreigners that go to Japan usually talk about the lack in the deodorant department. Some rumors behind why the Japanese don't smell as bad as us stinky foreigners. You'll hear that it's because us foreigners don't clean ourselves unlike Japanese people who often take a full bath every single night; you'll hear that it's because of our love for dairy and meat products or you'll hear that it's because Japan is a magical land where when you step off the airplane and suddenly you don't need to wear deodorant anymore but like most mysterious questions the actual answer lies in science and to understand this you'll need to know where body odor comes from.

We have two primary types of sweat glands: Eccrine and Apocrine. Eccrine sweat glands are small and found almost everywhere in your body. They go directly from underneath your skin to your skins surface. They secrete a mixture of water, and salts (NaCl, Potassium, Bicarbonate and others) that cools down your body. But then we have apocrine sweat glands and these are the glands that cause body odors. These glands are larger and only found in certain areas of your body, primarily your underarms and your pubic region. Instead of secreting directly under your skin they secrete into a hair follicle which then carries the sweat up under your skin and these glands secrete primarily protein, lipid (fatty acids), and steroids. 

 

By itself the sweat does not smell. However, sweat is a delicious and desirable substance for the bacteria that live on our skin. So the bacteria feed off of this sweat, metabolize it and than their waste products are what smells. So body odor essentially comes from bacteria poop....This is also why if you want to prevent body odor you should be looking for a deodorant that makes your underarms an inhospitable place for bacteria to live. Different bacteria and the different enzymes they use to break down our sweat produces different smells which is why different people have different body odors.

So what makes Japanese people have less body odor?? 
Genetically they have fewer of these apocrine sweat glands.
Why?....That's not fair...How does that happen? Why do I have to be more smelly?!

It all comes from one specific gene ABCC11. There are two variations of this gene: one with the allele A and one with the allele G. People born with the G allele have more active apocrine sweat glands. Whereas, people born with the A allele have fewer apocrine sweat glands and little to no body odor. The smelly allele G appears to be the original version of the gene, where as the none smelly allele A appears to have emerged approximately 2000 generations ago. Why did the A allele appear? We don't really know but we may think it might have something to do with colder climates. Most of us who are African, Latin-American, European, or Pacific Islander have the smelly version of the gene. However, only about a quarter of Japanese people, less than 10% of Chinese people, and pretty much no Koreans have the smelly version of the gene. 







But, there is more to this gene than just weather you produce body odor or not. There is a type of apocrine gland in your ear canal that produces ear wax. As many of you may have head Japanese people typically have something called "Dry ear wax" which is flacky. Unlike our ear wax which is wet and goopy. The type of ear wax you have is determined by the version of gene ABCC11 that you have. So if you have the G allele you will have wet ear wax and if you have the A allele you will produce dry ear wax. So this is a very quick way to check which version of the gene you have and whether or not you're likely to produce much body odor. 

Japanese deodorants...That small box...

American deodorants....a whole shelf and more

In conclusion this is why most Japanese people don't smell as much and why they don't have as large a variety of deodorant as we have. So just because you move to Japan (if you do) it doesn't mean you can magically stop using deodorant...you will still smell and that's not a bad thing it's apart of your genes.

-The more you know~