My wife had terrible acne for years - she tried every product under the sun, visited dermatologists, all of it.

About nine months ago I persuaded her to try absolutely nothing. Just wash her face with mild soap and water when she showers or after exercise. It was a hard sell. A really hard sell. It looked sinfully angry for the first few weeks, and then, bit by bit, started to fade.

Now... her skin is perfect, the scars are subsiding, and she hasn’t had even a hint of acne or so much as a zit in four months.

The crux of my hypothesis was that she was eradicating her skin microbiome over and over, and possibly breeding incredibly resistant bacteria with no competition.

I take a similar approach with oral hygiene - I don’t brush, I don’t use toothpaste or mouthwash, I just use a wooden toothpick to get anything stuck out. I started this in my teens at boarding school, as toothbrushes were often “borrowed” for cleaning rugby boots, and then replaced in the rack. At the time, I figured not brushing was better than god only knows what being rubbed into my gums. I had appalling breath and swollen gums for several months - but both just disappeared after adaptation.

I go to see a dentist every few years, mostly out of a sense of obligation, and have never had a carie, cavity, periodontal disease, or anything - I’m pushing 40. The most they’ve ever done is polish them. By my age my mother had lost half her molars, my father had a gobful of crowns and fillings, so it’s not genetics.

Maybe I’m talking crap, but I think we significantly underestimate our bodies abilities to maintain themselves, and buy into the idea that we require products to keep them working.

Unfortunately, weaning yourself off this stuff usually involves some degree of disruption, be it honking breath, or skin so angry you don’t want to be seen in public.

I've heard that some people do indeed have better bacterial biomes than others, some will be fine without brushing or flossing, and others will have problems. Saliva has a large part to play in preventing caries and bad breath, dry mouth can cause a lot of the issues you describe. Also, water fluoridation has made quite a big impact in public dental health. Remember that most people used to lose teeth regularly before the advent of fluoride toothpaste, often very early in their lives. Do you think that these people's teeth were maintaining themselves? Looking at old WW2 videos made me realize this, where many soldiers in their 20s had completely black teeth or massive gaps.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Water_fluoridation#History

I can’t find the name now, but there was a researcher who looked at crooked teeth and tooth decay in modern society, then started flying around the globe to see if the issue was the same in tribes. Turned out it wasn’t.

What do you have to say to that?

I'm not a dentist, but I do know that bacteria feed on sugar and carbohydrates. There's some info that says refined carbs are just as bad as candy. If all you eat is meat, vegetables, and some fruit, you're probably not gonna get as many cavities as a refined grain-based diet with more refined sugar.

The beasties that make plaque thrive on sugar. Turns out refined sugar and processed foods made with sweeteners like high fructose corn syrup are really hard to come by out in the sticks.

Yeah, I'd say don't apply that thinking to everything.

For what it's worth, I've done the same, but it only worked because I wasn't eating a bunch of sugary garbage. Definitely nobody should try it who eats that sort of stuff even somewhat often.

Exactly.

A close friend of mine had horrible dental hygiene, rarely brushing, drank soda and beer as his water, and only went to the dentist after developing intolerable pain something like a decade into this mode.

When he came to work the day after his dentist visit, he said the dentist told him "this is what we call mountain dew mouth" when examining his teeth.

If you don't eat stuff that makes plaque thrive, the consequences of ignoring it are less severe.

A similar, and perhaps better option: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miswak

Did you have your wisdom teeth out? Are your teeth straight? That makes a huge difference.

Knowing that what you eat - more fiber, less fiber, more carbs, less carbs, etc, how do you optimize your microbiome when there is so much variety among humans? Which is the right biome?

You can start at blood type.

Is it that why now more people live on earth than ever since?

Probably because of reduced all-cause mortality, increased food production, and the relative peace of the 20th century.

Relative peace of the 20th century? At least 108M have died in war. I believe it to be one of the biggest on record, and certainly not one of the peaceful times. So relative peace compared to what?

> So relative peace compared to what?

Total world population.

https://www.vox.com/2015/6/23/8832311/war-casualties-600-yea...

Well, I meant the latter part of the 20th century. Population has more than tripled since then. The crazy thing is that the 108M that died in WW2 really only slowed, or paused world population growth. It was not a devastating depopulation event like the Bubonic plague that killed 1/3rd of Europe.

When you say peace, I don’t think about plagues, natural disasters, or anything of the sort. I think of war. And there’s been war every decade (I believe) of the 20th century.

Your comment has nothing to do with the comment you are replying to. It's about quality of life and individual health.

You could breed humans like we do with industrial agriculture and factory farms, but you would have a difficult time arguing this is good for the health of the animals (or people) involved.

how did you start?

Starting in around 2013 or so, I stopped using any kind of soap or cleaner on my body, with a couple of exceptions. I still wash my hands regularly, and I use a tiny little bit of fairly bland, unscented soap between my legs in the shower. Note that my head hair is quite long, naturally coming down to my mid/lower back.

How do I get my body/face clean in the shower? Very hot water and very vigorous scrubbing/rubbing.

After doing that for a week, my body odor virtually disappeared, even when I was hot and sweaty. While my overall skin and hair condition had always been ok, it improved noticeably.

I did this after reading a number of articles online about it and figured it would be worth trying.

As a bit of an experimental control, I didn't tell my wife that I was doing this. We do regularly brush and braid each other's hair. After about two weeks, she said that my hair was more full and healthy than it's ever been, and she also confirmed the body odor changes.

So this is anecdotal: it was useful for me, and might be useful to some others. However, given everything we're learning about microbiomes in and on the body, it seems to make a lot of sense.

Tried this for months, I really smelled bad. Good friends telling me unprompted etc. YMMV.

I concur.

I've lived in homesteading environments where numerous people go months bathing sparingly using just water, while still actually getting things done involving significant labor, sweating and generally getting dirty.

Everyone reeks in these conditions. They don't realize it, and their intimate partners who are in constant contact also don't quite appreciate the degree of odor, because it's shared.

But from an outsider perspective, it's ripe.

There's probably an evolutionary reason for this, members of a tribe will smell similarly when eating the same food and sharing space/objects in close quarters. I can easily imagine how that would be advantageous. Foreigners will stink.

> bathing sparingly

That could be a difference; I scrub a good long time using quite a bit of hot water.

I used to use hot water + scrub. Was told it's terrible for your skin by my dermatologist, you start developing eczema in some cases in the long run. Warm water, white unscented mild soap and no scrub was his recommendation.

I've been using olive oil based soap and it works great.

.

can you expand on that? and also what do you mean by ways you couldn't even imagine?

You lost me at antibiotics. Overuse is a problem for certain, but we'd have a lot more death, and possibly worse, disability without them.

You just made up an argument for a point that the OP wasn't making.

He is not wrong... OP did not make this point however you can infer it, from his point of view

Actually in my limited knowledge about biology, both are right, when things are way discompensated, you have to use things to kill bacterias which almost take control of a part of your body (the baddies one) .

That misses the point. It's a trade off. The mindset of saying something is good or bad is ridiculously limiting.

Yes, more people would die. Does that mean the ones who didn't would be worse off? Less healthy?

There is a natural balance to the world order. Pushing the system, even building it up, creates strains that might not be obvious until it is catastrophically so.

> Edit: When I post about this stuff, I often get asked about specifics. For reasons of privacy, and several others, I would rather not get into them. Do your own research, find your own way. Don't wait for everything to be handed to you on a plate. I've provided more than enough information in this comment.

Come on now, are you really going to post about how something "paid off in ways I didn't even imagine possible when I started out" and not name even one example? This lowers your comment to being basically on the same tier of conversation as conspiracy theorists who brush off requests for proof with "DO YOUR RESEARCH, THE TRUTH IS OUT THERE I CAN'T GIVE YOU SPECIFICS".

Haha, that's what he did :D.

Coincidentally I looked OP's profile and found this URL again http://hn:[email protected]/index.html. I had stumbled upon it in a previous thread (don't remember which one, but I only look at profile when I read some specific kind of comments).

I didn't get what the website was about last time and I didn't stay long enough this time either.

That URL was obfuscated to prevent bot abuse.

It will now be replaced with a new one.

unfortunately mentioning any specifics risks transforming the conversation into arguing about such a specific item with the results being projected back onto the main statement. It also risks sounding like one is pushing his/her pseudoscientific stuff. In the area like microbiome with highly individual situations and relatively low level of established science any specifics is just an anecdote not much suitable for rigorous discussion. (i have myself found a couple ways of dealing with my SIBO (test based diagnosed by GE) for example and almost never discuss those specifics. It is really an area of "do you own research" and the useful methods/etc. are really "out there".)

Maybe so but “Don't wait for everything to be handed to you on a plate. I've provided more than enough information in this comment.” is really condescending and not inspiring much trust.

It's also a classic move when you can't backup your claims.

"This worked for me, but might not work for you, because of our specific circumstances," followed by a detailed description, would suffice, and in turn be much less useless and condescending.

Please, discuss specifics (as I have).

with all the caveats of not being a doctor and all the risks known and unknown, "don't try at home", etc. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17139208

while i didn't get totally cured, the condition went down very significantly, a couple orders of magnitude (by subjective feeling and some objective metrics), and since then i've mostly been maintaining the situation by a daily teaspoon of activated charcoal mixed into 2 cups of water (i drink it at least 3 hours after meal and at least 2 hours before meal to minimize charcoal binding on food instead of its intended targets).

This is interesting. I was never diagnosed with anything (too poor to go to the doctor at the time, even with insurance), but I came to the conclusion that I had a similar issue: bad (or overgrown) bacteria housed snugly in biofilm. As mentioned here (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26119265), someone suggested taking digestive enzymes on an empty stomach would help to break down the biofilm and allow healthier bacteria a chance to eatablish themselves.

Two different self-treatments aimed at what seem to be similar issues with anecdotal success. Hm. I really, really do hope that all aspects of our experiences get studied more thoroughly in the future.

Thanks for sharing.

If you aren't willing to post specifics about your own activities, you could at least provide references for the statements you did make, e.g. battle to consume resources, and throwing the microbiome off.

Don't bother to make vague generalizations without being willing to back them up, especially anonymously. It makes the statement nearly information-free. And this is coming from someone who agrees with your assessment.