Botox smoothes out smelly armpits

Chicago - Botox shots commonly used to temporarily smooth facial wrinkles may also be an aid to those with smelly armpits, a German study says.

Volunteers were asked to rate the intensity and "unpleasant" or "pleasant" odour of cut-out armpits from T-shirts worn by 16 people given shots with the botulinum toxin A -- known as Botox -- in one armpit and a harmless solution in the other.

Botox, a purified form of the toxin that causes botulism food poisoning, smoothes wrinkles and paralyses sweat glands by interfering with neurotransmitters and relaxing muscles.

According to the study, published in the journal Archives of Dermatology on Monday, the T-shirts were worn for a 24-hour period and rated from zero to six for smell intensity and minus-3 to plus-3 for the "unpleasant" or "pleasant" quality of the odour.

Study author Marc Heckmann of Ludwig-Maximilian University in Munich said the armpits scored an average 2.69 on the intensity scale before treatment, falling to 1.83 after treatment, study author Marc Kechmann of Ludwig-Maximilian University in Munich said.

As to smell quality, the scores averaged minus-1.14 before treatment and plus-0.46 after. The armpits were noticeably drier following the shots. -- Reuters

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