A 41-year-old Australian woman finally knows why she has been plagued for most of her life with a “fishy” smell. The woman has something known as “trimethylaminuria,” or fish malodour syndrome. The disorder affects the smell of her breath, sweat and urine. We ride on the subway every morning with about eighteen people who have this:

“The characteristic body odour resembling rotting fish can be intermittent, variable and influenced by diet, hormones and medications,” her doctors said in the Medical Journal of Australia.

Professor John Burnett, of the school of medicine and pharmacology at the University of Western Australia, said the unpleasant body odour was first noticed when the woman was just seven, but the path to diagnosis had been “extremely difficult”.

As if puberty wasn’t difficult enough. What with the bodily changes and growth spurts and insatiable hunger for human flesh…

“After experiencing ridicule, distress, shame, anxiety and low self esteem during her school years, she first consulted a doctor about the problem at the age of 17, then again two years later, followed by a further four doctors over the next 20 years,” Prof Burnett said.

The affliction is actually a genetic mutation which triggers excretion of trimethylamine, a compound found in fish, hence the smell. Doctors hope the woman’s diagnosis will help other people with rare afflictions overcome the shame and isolation they feel and will encourage them to seek treatment and support groups. Always in the very elevator you happen to be riding in.

Woman’s fishy-smelling mystery solved [News.AU]