Let those who never smelled bad cast the first stone

Analysis of our metabolism is crucial to comprehending the responses of our genes and microbes to the stresses of daily life, and to elucidating the causes and consequences of health and disease.

We applied metabolomic approach to an elusive condition that has always evaded diagnosis: socially and psychologically distressing odors that occur without a known or apparent cause. Learn about our preliminary results and participate in our anonymous survey to help us better understand and help with this condition.

Summary of MEBO discussion on May 7, 2017

In a Skype call held on May 7, 2017, by MEBO Research, moderated by María de la Torre, the main objective was to discuss strategies for managing body odor (associated with conditions such as TMAU or other metabolic disorders) through lifestyle and dietary changes.

Key points discussed:

Hormonal influence: The discussion covered how hormonal changes in adolescents (up to around age 21), women (during the menstrual cycle), and stressful situations (through adrenaline release) can influence or trigger odor symptoms (1:08–2:07; 14:31–15:24).

Diet and nutrition:

Natural, whole foods are preferable to processed foods in order to avoid unnecessary chemicals (3:33–4:05).

Foods high in sulfur (such as garlic and onions) should be limited or thoroughly cooked (for example, sautéed) so that odor-causing compounds evaporate before consumption (4:05–5:23).

It was emphasized that choline is an essential nutrient and should not be completely eliminated from the diet, as a deficiency can cause serious damage to the nervous system and increase anxiety (9:58–11:30).

Body detoxification process: It was explained that the body needs time to eliminate odor-causing chemicals that have accumulated in fatty tissues over the years. Drinking plenty of water and engaging in cardiovascular exercise can help speed up this process by mobilizing these compounds so they can be eliminated through sweat, urine, and breathing (5:26–7:43; 12:51–13:47).

Emotional well-being: The discussion addressed how social fear and anxiety about possibly smelling bad can create a vicious cycle that negatively affects psychological well-being (10:38–11:30).

My hope: TMAU short

 

Wednesday, April 12, 2017

VIDEO "My hope: Tmau short"

My hope: Tmau short

by TheoMeta

W.K. Elohim Productions

March 30, 2017

One of our community members found this TMAU short film and shared it with me. For the first time ever, it was actually optimistic and full of hope.

I do believe we have come a long way, as we continue steadfastly on the path looking for answers that we hope will arrive sooner than later. There is currently more hope now because there are many "fronts" from which we are expecting new discoveries, and that is most promising, uplifting and inspiring.

Thank you TheoMeta for doing this film and for allowing me to post it in the MEBO Blog! Sharing the hope saves lives. We must keep sharing.

María

Metabolic Pathway Simulation: Apocrine Bromhidrosis compared to TMAU

Metabolic Pathway Simulation: Apocrine Bromhidrosis compared to TMAU

METABOLIC PATHWAY SIMULATIONS

APOCRINE BROMHIDROSIS

COMPARED TO TRIMETHYLAMINURIA

Danny.kunz@gmx.de

Click for presentation

Danny Kunz has donated a very interesting PowerPoint presentation for the MEBO Conference 2017 consisting of metabolic pathway simulations on Apocrine Bromhidrosis compared to Trimethylaminuria. This presentation also discusses the role of the eccrine glands in bromhidrosis.

We are most grateful to Danny, who is a part of this, "loosely coupled group of patients (and non-patients) with academic degree and without academic degree integrating our separate research capabilities and representing an addressable unit."

This theory is supported by high throughput simulations backed by large enzyme databases, which makes it a very persuasive presentation. In other words, this group has done a computer simulation of bromhidrosis backed up by large enzyme databases, as Danny explains in the presentation. Their theory is that bromhidrosis is an apocrine and eccrine sweat glands metabolic disease.  Danny also says in his presentation that thyroid function with and without elevated hormone, TSH, may plays a role in bromhidrosis, and the group recommends supplementation and diet for this.

Even though the simulations discussed in this PowerPoint presentation do not have the aspect of medical proof yet, it provides a very compelling theory that calls for further research.

TOPIC OF THE PRESENTATION:

1.      Fecal (indole) breath and body odor and it's recommended supplementation and diet, 

2.      Apocrine and eccrine sweat glands metabolic disease in bromhidrosis,

a.      Discussions on isovaleric acid and amino acid leucine in eccrine bromhidrosis,

b.      Recommends a Thyroid functions blood test, with and without elevated Thyroid Stimulating Hormone (TSH), and recommended supplementation and diet.

This very interesting presentation raises question on whether TMAU2 to TMAU1 relation pattern could be transferred to the Bromhidrosis pattern as well.

Click for larger copy

We are most grateful to Danny Kunz and his colleagues for creating this very interesting presentation for our MEBO Annual Conference and Meetup 2017!

María

María de la Torre
Founder and Executive Director

A Public Charity
maria.delatorre@meboresearch.com
www.meboresearch.org
www.mebo.com.br/
MEBO's Blog (English)
El Blog de MEBO (español)
MEBO Brasil - Blog (Portuguese)

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Giving the underserved the care they deserve

Nobody likes strong smells coming from other human beings. It's just that social convention: you are nice, if you smell nice, and you are a monster - like Shakespeare's Caliban - if you smell bad.

But it could be the brunt of the genetic or environmental misfortune

MEBO Miami Beach Conference 2017 Prof Shephard's Presentation

 

Friday, March 31, 2017

MEBO Miami Beach Conference 2017 Prof Shephard's Presentation

For full transcript, click here

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PowerPoint Presentation Gut microbiome and diet By Professor Elizabeth Shephard, PhD

For MEBO Annual Meetup and Conference 2017 The Betsy South Beach, Miami Beach March 31, 2017, 8:00 p.m.

SUMMARY

Slide #2 GUT MICROBIOME:

1. The term microbiome refers to a collection of bacteria that inhabit a particular niche in our body, and we have a number of these microbiomes.
• ~90% of an adult human is bacterial.
• 10x more bacterial cells than human cells.
2. Microbiome provides essential functions, i.e., Feeds us, forms us and protect us.
3. Bacteria typically in our gut will digest complex molecules providing us with nutrients.
4. They form us; the bacteria helping us to develop an immune system, and they protect us because if we are inhabited by non-pathogenic bacteria, they will protect us from being inhabited by pathogenic bacteria that can cause disease.
5. We have bacteria that inhabit the esophagus, the stomach, the small intestine, the cecum, and the colon.
6. How do we acquire a microbiome? A baby is born without microbiomes, but it will inherit its mother's microbiome, particular if it's born from the vaginal delivery; and baby born by caesarean section will develop its microbiome slightly delayed from that of a vaginal birth.

Slide #3 PRIMARY TMAU – FMO3, DIET AND MICROBIOME:

Why is the gut microbiome relevant to Primary Trimethylaminuria?

1. When we eat food, gut microbial action in the gut breaks down the bond of the Trimethylamine group, by liberating nitrogen, methyl group, and other atoms that might be linked to them, and liberate the molecule resulting in trimethylamine (TMA).
2. This [odorous] trimethylamine (TMA) molecule is very quickly absorbed [into the bloodstream] and is taken to the liver.
3. In the liver we have this enzyme called FMO3, which is able to catalyze a reaction, which adds an oxygen (the O here in the diagram) onto the nitrogen (N) to form the molecule called trimethylaminuria-N-Oxide (TMAO) [non-odorous], which is then were very rapidly excreted through the kidneys.
4. And so, the cause of trimethylaminuria [TMAU1] is when the FMO3 gene carries a mutation, such that the enzyme that is encoded by this gene, cannot carry out this reaction very efficiently.
5. Flavin containing Monooxygenase 3 is the metabolic enzyme in the liver that adds the oxygen atom (O) to trimethylamine (TMA) to make it non-odorous.

Slide #4 MULTIPLE MICROBIOME-MEDIATED PATHWAYS CAN LEAD TO TMA PRODUCTION

1. A gut free of bacteria does not produce TMA.
2. Several bacterial phyla produce TMA.
3. In the gut we have many different pathways that can be carried out by different bacteria to produce trimethylamine (TMA).
4. Bacteria can actually convert trimethylamine (TMA) [odorous] into trimethylamine-N-Oxide [non odorous], and use it themselves. So this would be by bacterial enzyme.

Slide #5 FISH DIET:

There are a number of different constituents of the diet that have been shown when you culture bacteria to be able to give rise to trimethylamine. These include choline, betaine, carnitine, and also trimethylamine n-oxide (TMAO) [from fish and seafood] itself.

1. Marine fish that live in the sea or in deep fresh water lakes are the richest dietary source of TMA because to protect their protein from breaking down in salt water and pressure changes, the fish Flavin Containing monooxygenase enzyme (protein) is increased to produce a lot of TMAO, which protects their proteins in the muscles of the fish from breaking down.
2. In humans eating fish (high in TMAO) our gut bacteria converts it to TMA with our gut bacteria’s TMAO reductase enzyme and the bacteria uses the TMA for itself. The rest of the TMA is passed from the gut to the liver to be metabolized by the FMO3 metabolic enzyme to add an oxygen atom to make it TMAO (non-odorous).

Slide #6 How do we actually measure the content of a particular foodstuff?

1. The two methods [of measuring the content of TMA in foods], chemical digestion and biological digestion, don't always give the same answer. One is a very harsh chemical condition, and the other one is reliant on the biological digestion of the foodstuffs in the gut by the bacteria that reside in the gut of that Individual.
2. So just looking at a table doesn't necessarily give you the amount of trimethylamine (TMA) that's might be released when a human eats this particular foodstuff.

Slides #7 and #8 TABLES OF DIETARY SOURCES of TMA:

Lists TMA content of foods, including fruits, vegetables, and chicken, mushroom, pork, egg, beef, soya, lamb, mackerel, and cod, indicating significant differences between chemical digestion and biological digestion.

Slide #9 DIETARY INDOLES INHIBIT FMO3 ACTIVITY:

Researchers identified an inhibitor of FMO3 activity in brussel sprouts.

We are most grateful to Professor Elizabeth Shephard, PhD, for her continual monumental support through the years to the MEBO Mission by educating us through her three PowerPoint presentations, by working with United States and United Kingdom governmental agencies and councils, and by spearheading MRC funded research into a therapeutic for TMAU.

María

María de la Torre
Founder and Executive Director

A Public Charity
maria.delatorre@meboresearch.com
www.meboresearch.org
www.mebo.com.br/
MEBO's Blog (English)
El Blog de MEBO (español)
MEBO Brasil - Blog (Portuguese)

Seeing Through the Skin

by AURAMETRIX

​Human skin emits light (albeit the glow is extremely weak) and a wide variety of small molecules that may be sometimes "sniffed" by dogs or even other humans. These chemicals tell a story about our health and wellness, things we eat and drink, touch and breathe. Mosquitoes use such emissions to assess our "attractiveness" from indicators such as Indoles (unpleasantly smelling but healthy "inner soil" biomarker) or carbon dioxide (amount of which correlates with the size of the person producing it) in the air.  Sampling air for health indicators is much less invasive than drawing blood and could be an invaluable diagnostic tool. Many applications of gas sensors have been proposed over decades ranging from sweat patches to sensorized garments. Where are we now? What is the 2016 state of the art? Last month, BACtrack won 1st Prize in “Wearable Alcohol Sensor Challenge” Issued by National Institutes of Health. Milo Sensors, employing a different approach to identify ethanol molecules diffusing through the skin, won 2nd prize. BACtrack Skyn will be available in limited quantities later this year, marking an important step from bulky alcohol-monitoring ankle bracelets remotely monitoring offenders to inconspicuous devices. Perhaps, one day, drug patches, too, won't require sending them to a lab for analysis. Human skin is a super-highway of many small molecules reflecting our health and wellbeing. Various devices capable of "seeing" through our skin were announced in the past several years. Some of them - like AIRO watch claiming to detect metabolites in your bloodstream as they are released during and after meals - turned out to be vaporware. The jury is still out on many others like HealbeGobe. And the remaining ones are still in prototyping stages.  EU-funded Biotex textiles and Perspiration Detective patch development at the University of Cincinnati started from detecting sodium ions in sweat as indicators of hydration levels. A tattoo-like electronic sweat sensor built by a team in UCSD demonstrated that measuring a change in lactate might be sufficient to find when an athlete is about to “hit the wall.” Startup Electrozyme, later renamed to Biolinq, was formed to commercialize this technology. The picture shows their prototype of a skin-applied electrochemical sensor that analyses body fluids to provide actionable health information. The goal is to develop temporary tattoo biosensors providing blood level info without accessing blood. Halo Wearables will launch their non-invasive hydration monitoring wearable in early 2016. It is tailored specifically for elite athletes.  Halo's optical sensors track sodium and potassium levels in the user's blood. ​ Researchers from the University of California, Berkeley, Stanford and Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory have also developed a wearable sensor that can monitor sodium, potassium and lactate levels in sweat. A paper with their findings was published in Nature earlier this year. ​ Startup Xsensio, accepted this year in Mass Challenge accelerator, works on “intelligent stamps” the size of a credit card (Lab-on-Skin wearables) including a unique low-power sensor for sweat analysis. ECHO smart patch from Kenzen aims to "silently follow your health and notify you only when it's most important". It analyzes sodium and potassium in sweat to monitor hydration, lactic acid and glucose analysis energy expenditure.  Existing technologies can detect a general increase or decrease in metabolites rather exact concentrations. So using sweat to accurately monitor clinically important variables such as glucose levels, is still out of reach. But developers are employing innovative approaches to make it possible. A team from Seoul National University, University of Texas and a Massachusetts-based company MC10 are developing a flexible patch that senses glucose in people with diabetes and administers drugs, all in a single device. And there may be easier ways to display all the information collected from various sensors -  perhaps even directly on the body - as the team from the University of Tokyo demonstrated with device measuring oxygen saturation levels in blood. ​We've come a long way from bulky and invasive medical equipment that required the patient to remain in the hospital for monitoring. We have made a lot of progress from the times when all symptoms and signs were recorded with a pencil and paper. There is still a lot more to do before real-time self-managing noninvasive diagnostics reaches a breakthrough, but we are so much closer.

REFERENCES


Andreoni G, Standoli CE, & Perego P (2016). Defining Requirements and Related Methods for Designing Sensorized Garments. Sensors (Basel, Switzerland), 16 (6) PMID: 27240361

Gao W, Emaminejad S, Nyein HY, Challa S, Chen K, Peck A, Fahad HM, Ota H, Shiraki H, Kiriya D, Lien DH, Brooks GA, Davis RW, & Javey A (2016). Fully integrated wearable sensor arrays for multiplexed in situ perspiration analysis. Nature, 529 (7587), 509-14 PMID: 26819044

Imani S, Bandodkar AJ, Mohan AM, Kumar R, Yu S, Wang J, & Mercier PP (2016). A wearable chemical-electrophysiological hybrid biosensing system for real-time health and fitness monitoring. Nature communications, 7 PMID: 27212140

Lee H, Choi TK, Lee YB, Cho HR, Ghaffari R, Wang L, Choi HJ, Chung TD, Lu N, Hyeon T, Choi SH, & Kim DH (2016). A graphene-based electrochemical device with thermoresponsive microneedles for diabetes monitoring and therapy. Nature nanotechnology, 11 (6), 566-72 PMID: 26999482

Panneer Selvam A, Muthukumar S, Kamakoti V, & Prasad S (2016). A wearable biochemical sensor for monitoring alcohol consumption lifestyle through Ethyl glucuronide (EtG) detection in human sweat. Scientific reports, 6 PMID: 26996103
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Yokota T, Zalar P, Kaltenbrunner M, Jinno H, Matsuhisa N, Kitanosako H, Tachibana Y, Yukita W, Koizumi M, & Someya T (2016). Ultraflexible organic photonic skin. Science advances, 2 (4) PMID: 27152354