When I was eating high carb, my sweat had a sweetish sickly smell. It now smells as regular sweat, if this makes sense. I also sweat less. Another thing I noticed is that my poo smells less. I don't leave such a terrible smell after myself when I use the bathroom.

Thanks to everyone for the many testimonials! Just confirms a lot of what I've read from scientific sources. Fascinating!

I found a study about male body odor and meat consumption:

"Axillary body odor is individually specific and potentially a rich source of information about its producer. Odor individuality partly results from genetic individuality, but the influence of ecological factors such as eating habits are another main source of odor variability. However, we know very little about how particular dietary components shape our body odor. Here we tested the effect of red meat consumption on body odor attractiveness. We used a balanced within-subject experimental design. Seventeen male odor donors were on "meat" or "nonmeat" diet for 2 weeks wearing axillary pads to collect body odor during the final 24 h of the diet. Fresh odor samples were assessed for their pleasantness, attractiveness, masculinity, and intensity by 30 women not using hormonal contraceptives. We repeated the same procedure a month later with the same odor donors, each on the opposite diet than before. Results of repeated measures analysis of variance showed that the odor of donors when on the nonmeat diet was judged as significantly more attractive, more pleasant, and less intense. This suggests that red meat consumption has a negative impact on perceived body odor hedonicity."

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/...pt=AbstractPlus

Thank you for posting the article referenced. To the side of it there were several vegetarian references, which always gets the red flags flying. So I googled the authors' names and came up with the expanded parameters for the actual trial itself. Very interesting. So was this paragraph under "results" -
"First, we used individual odor donors as a unit of the analysis. Mean ratings for each odor donor in experimental (meat) and control (nonmeat) conditions were calculated. These means were entered into ANOVA as repeated measures. Odors from individuals in the nonmeat condition were rated as more pleasant, attractive, and less intense. However, none of the tests reached formal level of statistical significance."
It was also noteworthy that all the guys had to refrain from strong herbs (onions , garlic), strong drink, most flavorings, even sex! Not realistic as far as most people are concerned. IOW, it was merely opinion, not quantifiable amounts that led to that conclusion.

Here's the complete text of the experiment:

http://chemse.oxfordjournals.org/cg...t/full/31/8/747

I think genetics is what makes a person smell, not so much what we put in our body. Sure, if you eat 3 heads of garlic every day and drink nothing but fish oil, you're probably going to smell fishy and garlicky. But with the amounts of varied foods we eat, even on our LC plans, I don't think we eat enough strongly pungent (sp?) foods to make us smell bad..

My bf has a strong scent. He must wear deodorant at all times or people flee. I, on the other hand, rarely give on any kind of strong odor (this has been verified scientifically, hehehe).

I think it has to do with what kind of bacteria our bodies host, what kind of natural defenses our ancestors developed to deal with those bacteria and our good ol' genetic propensities!

It might be genetics but it isn't our genetics (I think). We have bacteria that live on the skin that actually produce the odor, all we produce is the sweat.

I've heard this, haven't verified it.

But if this is true, then you might be able to "catch" someone elses smell.

oooh! Wikipedia agrees with me:

We are exposed to 100's, if not 1000's of kinds of bacteria daily, but only a few kinds grow on our body. Our immune systems destroy or otherwise repel the rest.Sugar is a great growth promoter, and this brings us full circle back to the poster who claimed her sweat smelled different (better) on lc.

Hmm-I notice I sweat less on paleo than when I was eating junk and processed food, and stomach issues are pretty much gone (ie trouble digesting-which causes the embarrasing and unpleasant side effects) I still notice a small smell if I don't use deodorant (I use jason all natural stuff) but it isn't bad-I do notice a funny smell to my breath sometimes especially after a large amount of coconut, but it's not a bad smell, just different. And taking omega 3 fish oil and cutting junk food has helped with my scalp-have switched over to jason toothpaste, SLS and junk free shampoo (my fave is actually my kids california baby shampoo and body wash with lavendar LOL) and burts bees skin products for lotions etc. for intensive hair conditioning I use coconut oil-actually, my husband has stopped complaining about my bad breath in the last 3 weeks and I have not gotten one tonsillolith like I used to do. The coconut upset my stomach for the first week, but I think it was more of a toxin from the bad stuff dying than the coconut itself, I'm now fine with coconut
Becky

"Axillary body odor is individually specific and potentially a rich source of information about its producer. Odor individuality partly results from genetic individuality, but the influence of ecological factors such as eating habits are another main source of odor variability. However, we know very little about how particular dietary components shape our body odor. Here we tested the effect of red meat consumption on body odor attractiveness. We used a balanced within-subject experimental design. Seventeen male odor donors were on "meat" or "nonmeat" diet for 2 weeks wearing axillary pads to collect body odor during the final 24 h of the diet. Fresh odor samples were assessed for their pleasantness, attractiveness, masculinity, and intensity by 30 women not using hormonal contraceptives. We repeated the same procedure a month later with the same odor donors, each on the opposite diet than before. Results of repeated measures analysis of variance showed that the odor of donors when on the nonmeat diet was judged as significantly more attractive, more pleasant, and less intense. This suggests that red meat consumption has a negative impact on perceived body odor hedonicity."

Notice they checked for pleasantness, attractiveness, masculinity, and intensity, and the nonmeat diet was judged as more attractive, pleasant, and intense. Um, but not more masculine?

Pheromones are big attractants in the animal world. Even we humans with our puny detection skills have managed to rate certain masculine smells as attractive, though we don't know why. Moreover, certain smells are more attractive to women as they approach peak fertility in their monthly cycle. Forget his bank balance, let's just have a sniff at him! :-)

My dh has an extremely sensitive nose, and he is not the kind to "pull punches" when it comes to telling somebody the truth about anything -- how fat they look, how they smell, etc . He has always said that I never smell bad, not in my LF days and not in my LC days now, either.

I do believe that it is at least partly genetic.

OTOH, if my LC diet has caused me to reduce the flatulence problem that I would have trouble with from time to time, then that would indeed help to improve the smell factor, wouldn't it?

I don't understand where the "meat putrifying in the intestines" thing came from originally. I've heard that all my life, too. If increase in meat meant increase in rotten foods in my intestine, I should have become more flatuent, not less.

Annoying vegan propaganda.

What do they imagine that they human digestive system looks like? Things don't just sit there in the intestines or the stomach. They move along. That's what the intestines do, they move things along, they suck out nutrients and add waste products as it goes along. It isn't a big pit where things just sit and fester.

to the vegetarians who repeat this nonsense: Pick up a biology book sometime.

I have always eaten red meat, and I have had many women over time comment on how good I smell, ask me what type of cologne I wore. The thing is, I don’t wear cologne, all I did was bath, with no particular brands of soap, or shampoo, it just changed from time to time, so that wouldn’t be the factor.
I have also had it mentioned to me by women over time that when I exercise my sweat does not seem to stink like a lot of guys they know. They usually are remarkably surprised. I give reference to people outside of myself because really I know our own since of smell isn’t always the most accurate in determining our own smell.

Now, when I switched to Paleo eating, my smell really does not change.
If I eat a lot of garlic I kind of notice a smell, but as far as other things changing my smell significantly, nothing that I know of has.

Now, I will hand the vegetarians this, if I did not brush my teeth, or floss them, and let food sit in their and rot, well then perhaps if I ate a lot of red meat that is fatty that might get stuck, then my breath might get pretty fowl. Perhaps more so than if I replaced meat with fruit. But, that is my breath, and that is due to lack of hygiene.

Well I just started low carb again at the beginning of the month and I smell different and NOT for the better. I would not go so far as to say that I stink but it's not as nice as it used to be.

I don’t know if it is something that will go away or not. My SO said I don’t smell sweet like I used to. I can even smell the difference. I hope it goes away soon.

I ate a Raw Food Diet for 3 months and I smelled pretty good, kind of fruity, but then again I didn’t eat any cooked or processed foods like most vegetarian/vegans.

Give it some time. It takes awhile for the body to adapt to low carb eating.