body odor expert

[anoymous]

hi
i just want to know is there any body odour expert that i can email to. I really need to talk to a doctor and what kind of specialist that bo can be related to

[mpdela]

Hi anonymous,

Since I don't know where you live, it is very difficult to answer your question. In fact, the only MD in the world that I know of that treats patients for TMAU is Dr. Robin Lachmann in London, England. All the other experts that I know of are scientists, and they don't diagnose or treat patients. They can only say what test figures are consistent with, compared to other tests of people with and without a body odor conditions, and can't give a diagnosis.

One way of getting the names of experts who know about TMAU is to find articles in professional journals in PubMed using keywords like, Trimethylaminuria, TMAU, Fish Odor, bromhidrosis, etc. Then, do an online search of the names of the experts whose name comes up most often as authors of these professional articles.

Sadly, though, based on what experts have told us, about 80% of the sufferers who test for TMAU test negative. That means that approximately 80% of sufferers have other yet-to-be identified body odor condition! So, if other causes haven't been identified, then there would most certainly not be an expert on any body odor condition other than TMAU, UNFORTUNATELY... That's the reason we need research - to discover other causes of odor.

There has been a trend in some expert circles to research beyond the genetic form of TMAU, and to explore other causes of body odor, such as microbial, as well as other FMO3 metabolic processes involving other volatile organic compounds, or substrates, not limited to trimethylamine.

So, to answer your question, basically, there are no doctors you can make an appointment to see who would really know anything about body odor other than odor caused by serious illnesses, with the exception of Dr. Lachmann in London, who knows as much as there is to know about TMAU these days. But he only sees patients through the British National Health System (NHS) who have been referred by their GPs. I don't think Dr. Lachmann gives medical advice via emails.

There are some scientists who are compassionate and might answer a limited amount of questions in emails, but it's really not their job to do so. There is a scientist in London, Dr. Colin Dolphin who has contacted me and expressed interest in working closely with our community. He has offered to help explain some of the basic science although, as a non-clinical research scientist, he will be hesitant to offer advice on clinically related matters. He also has a thread in the UK TMAU forum, tmau.org.uk called "Questions for Dr Dolphin." Dr. Dolphin was part of the London team that in the late 1990s and early 2000s discovered that mutations in the FMO3 gene caused TMAU.

I hope this helps you, although it probably didn't provide you with the answer you were hoping for, sorry about that.

María