This doctor stopped showering for 5 years and the conclusions he reached are fascinating
Dr. James Hamblin stopped taking regular showers to see what effect it would have on his body. Here are his surprising findings.
Is it best to shower first thing in the morning or right before bed? And how often does the average person need to shower?
Some people shower once or more every day but not everyone has the time or inclination to. But just how unhealthy is it to go without showering for a long time.
The obvious reason we need to shower regularly is hygiene. Our bodies sweat and while sweat is odorless, it starts to get smelly when it reacts with the bacteria that lives on our skin.
Skipping the odd shower now and again won’t trigger body odor but the the longer you go without a shower, developing BO is inevitable - not to mention increasing your chances of exacerbating other conditions such as psoriasis, dermatitis, and eczema.
One intrepid set out to find an answer. Dr. James Hamblin, who specializes in public health and preventive medicine and is a lecturer Yale School of Public Health, decided to stop taking regular showers to see what effect it would have on his body and general health.
The myths about showering and disease
He told CNN on the Chasing Life podcast what prompted him to start his experiment: “People were suddenly taking probiotics and wanting to have optimal gut flora. And I saw the same thing potentially happening in skin health because you have these trillions of microbes all over you. The skin microbiome is smaller than the gut microbiome, but it’s a similar principle. You walk into any pharmacy and next to cold and flu medications, there are aisles of shampoos and soaps. It just got me thinking: what is this all for?”
Hamblin stopped taking regular showers for five years and followed up his research by seeking the opinions of a wide range of professionals from dermatologists to microbiologists, allergists, immunologists and aestheticians.
He detailed his findings in his book, Clean: The New Science of Skin which argues that most of our standards of cleanliness are less related to health than people think. The millions of microbes that live on and inside the pore of our skin manage their own mini-ecosystem. Basically, it’s important to stay clean but not get over-obsessed with hygiene, thinking that it’s a way to avoid disease.
“If you look at the actual way in which many of those products are actually doing anything to prevent disease transmission (besides) making sure you don’t have bodily fluids on you … that might transmit disease, the rest of it is making you look and feel and smell good,” Hamblin concludes.
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