Your body smells fishy like fish? this is the cause & bull; hello healthy

Have you ever heard of fish odor syndrome? This syndrome is characterized by a strong body odor such as the smell of rotten fish.

In fact, everyone who is healthy must sweat. The sweat produced by each person will be different, whether it is different in amount, frequency, and smell caused by the sweat. Many things affect sweat production, but the most common is that the hotter the air temperature, the sweat production will increase. This is intended to maintain normal body temperature.

The smell of sweat that appears is actually caused by bacteria that are on the surface of the skin and the more bacteria on the skin it can cause your sweat to smell even more. But unlike this fish odor syndrome, not only does sweat smell like fish, urine and mouth also smell like rotten fish.

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What is fish odor syndrome?

There is a rare disease called fish odor syndrome, or in medical language it is called trimethylaminuria. Fish odor syndrome is characterized by body, urine, and breath smelling like the smell of rotten fish. This odor arises because the patient's body cannot change the chemical trimethylamine. So that when the body fails to break down and change these chemicals, trimethylamine will continue to accumulate and affect the smell of sweat, urine, and breath of the sufferer.

What are the symptoms and signs of fish odor syndrome?

Symptoms that result from this syndrome are the appearance of an unpleasant odor from the sufferer. This unpleasant odor occurs in sweat, urine, saliva, and vaginal fluids, and no other symptoms appear.

Sometimes some people also have a very strong and unpleasant body odor, but usually this will vary depending on the conditions. However, in people with fish odor syndrome, the smell that appears will remain and does not depend on the condition. In some cases, this syndrome appears in children, but it occurs only in a short period of time and disappears in a matter of months or years.

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What are the main causes of fish odor syndrome?

In normal people, the bacteria present in the intestines help us to digest foods such as eggs, nuts, and other foods. Then the result of the digestion process is the chemical trimethylamine.

Healthy people will automatically release an enzyme which is responsible for breaking down these chemicals and does not cause trimethylamine to accumulate in the body. However, not in fish odor syndrome sufferers. They just can't produce this enzyme. This results in trimethylamine being produced continuously by the body without being broken down by enzymes. The more trimethylamine in the body will worsen one's body odor.

The inability to produce an enzyme that is responsible for metabolizing trimethylamine is caused by a mutation in the FMO3 gene that is owned by fish odor syndrome sufferers. Usually, the mutated gene is passed on by the parents of the sufferer who also has the same syndrome. One parent - father or mother - may carry this gene which is then passed on to the child.

A person who has the mutated FMO3 carrier gene often does not cause any symptoms or does not suffer from fish odor syndrome either, even if they have the syndrome the timeframe is not too long.

Another cause of fish odor syndrome

Not all people with fish odor syndrome have mutated genes. Some cases can be caused by consuming excess protein or an increase in the number of intestinal bacteria that produce trimethylamine in the body. In fact, in some cases, people with liver and kidney disease are also at risk for fish odor syndrome, because they have an inactive FMO3 enzyme that allows them to not metabolize trimethylamine.

In addition, women are more likely to suffer from this syndrome than men. The reason is that the female sex hormones, progesterone and estrogen, can worsen symptoms. Some conditions can even make the smell worse, such as:

• Puberty in girls
• Before and after the menstrual period
• After taking birth control pills
• Approaching menopause

How to treat fish odor syndrome?

Until now, there has not been found a treatment that can treat fish odor syndrome, because this syndrome is more likely due to genetics. But people with fish odor syndrome can reduce the odor caused by adopting a healthy lifestyle and eating healthy foods. Foods that should be avoided in order to reduce the odor are:

• Cow's milk
• Egg
• Innards
• Red beans
• Peanuts
• Various soybean products
• Broccoli
• Cabbage
• Assortment of seafood

Meanwhile, sometimes people with fish odor syndrome are also advised to take antibiotic drugs that can reduce the number of bacteria in the intestines which then reduce the production of trimethylamine.