What Lurks in our Belly Buttons and Armpits?

According to real, legitimate  researchers, our belly buttons and our armpits are rainforests of bacteria.   I have two comments on this research topic:  First: That is disgusting. And second: what makes scientists select belly buttons and armpits as their chosen field of specialization?

I shouldn’t pick on the scientists as their research yields fascinating data which might help them develop new drugs down the road to combat disease, but still scooping out stuff from belly buttons or armpits all day cannot be fun.

For example, in the belly button study conducted by the Belly Button Biodiversity Project (I kid you not), which included 60 navels, scientists found 2,368 bacterial species, 1,458 of which may be new to science. Some belly buttons contained as few as 29 species of bacteria while others were home to as many as 107 strains of bacteria. And these were not your run of the mill bacteria. One strain of bacteria was only previously found in the soil of Japan while two other species had jumped into navels from the Earth’s ice caps or thermal vents.

What does this say about our belly button bacteria besides the fact that they seem to like a change of scenery? According to scientists, it says our navels are like rainforests displaying a beautiful variety of species for us to enjoy and cultivate. And although there were many types of bacteria, there were a few dominant types – a characteristic that also mirrors life in the rainforest.

Should we be grossed out?  Well, science thinks the bacteria are nifty and beautiful–even the stinky bacteria that grow in our armpits. They think instead of sterilizing the bacteria out of our bodies, we might want to appreciate them more as they can help us maintain skin health.  (An unrelated and unsubstantiated side note on this research: the scientists who don’t think we should scrub our navels and armpits tend to have less friends and close relationships than their colleagues who encourage the use of scented body wash—coincidence: we think not)

So, what should the average person do with this new belly button and armpit knowledge? Well, you can stock up on Purell sanitizer because you might be using it in a whole new way.  You can also scrub your various body parts and orifices several times per day to rid your skin of bacteria. Maybe you can take a kinder approach and embrace your bacteria and view it as a potential shield against new diseases that might crop up down the road. If none of these options appeal to you, you can  decide to never go out of your house again which might prevent your armpits and navels from swapping bacteria with other armpits and navels thus decreasing the chance that bad bacteria will invade your home.

Life was so much simpler when a quick swipe of Secret antiperspirant made life good for all of us.