David Whitlock, a scientist, has not taken a shower for 12 years. Instead, he sprays a bacterial mist containing live bacteria to remove odor and maintain the number of good bacteria.
It is because using soap can remove good bacteria on our skin. So he chose not to take a shower but to spray the mist.
This kind of behavior sounds strange to me. But can it be very effective to maintain good bacteria and prevent disease?
I cannot do like him but I am just curious. Thanks.
the Phrase "good bacteria" doesn't mean it's not gonna be harmful to you . actually they called : normal flora . they are refer not just to bacteria they include all types of microorganisms .
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK7617/
I give you an example : there is some bacteria in our bowel they help our digestive system to work better . but these bacteria in case of some infectious disease or in the people with Immunodeficiency disease like AIDS turn to be pathogens .
the vision of David Whitlock is not irrelevant in fact in the field of industrial biotechnology we use micro organism to clean and digest environmental pollution like oil spills & ... just like him use bacteria too clean out his body but in fact the thing is he put non pathogens bacteria on his skin so there is no place for other bacteria .
but as a professional view there amount of normal flora on our skin is 10 times more than our cells so you can not think our skin is a surface and you can just wipe every thing on it just by showering and ... I'm telling you these thing are odd and there is no scientific evidence that support this odd things . maybe in 100 years when we ran out of drinking water we force to make cleaning sprays base on this view . but you know such a crazy but possible thing in theory .
You can read about the guy here: http://www.livescience.com/52719-do-we-need-showers.html He uses soil bacteria from the Nitrosomonas genus, which can break down ammonia and product nitric oxide (NO). According to him horses have these bacteria on their skin. Using soap can destroy these bacteria on our skin and the proper recolonization can take months. So these are really sensitive microbes.
He claims that these bacteria were once part of the human skin microbiome, but was removed when people started to use soap.
I found some circumstantial evidence only:
The groups that'd had more contact with the modern world tended to have less microbial diversity, the researchers found. The Yanomami in the study had almost double the amount of bacterial diversity as the people in the U.S., and about 30 to 40 percent more diversity than the Guahibo Amerindians and Malawian participants, said study researcher Jose Clemente, an assistant professor of genetic and genomic sciences and medicine at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai in New York City.
This just shows that the biodiversity is much greater on the skin and in the gut of tribe people living in isolation from modern society.
I read a few years ago that tribe people have even soil bacteria on their skin, so it might be true, but I did not find more information about the concrete species living on the skin of these people, so it is inconclusive whether he is right or not. Taking shower is not necessary btw. if you can bear with the odor...
