Botox jabs may guard against body odour

After Demi Moore's laughter lines and Nicky Chapman's frown, will Tony Blair's armpits be next for the Botox treatment?

The Prime Minister's famously damp shirts might stay crisper, even after delivering a Labour conference speech, if he were to submit to the treatment that has ironed the wrinkles out of a thousand celebrity faces, research suggests.

A team of scientists from the Ludwig Maximilian University in Munich found that as well as smoothing ageing skin, Botox injections into the armpit can help to protect against body odour. In one of the less pleasant tasks experimental subjects have been required to undertake, 16 volunteers were asked to sniff "armpit secretions" from each other and rank them in order of the nastiness of the odour.

Each volunteer was then injected with Botox, and seven days later the test was repeated. The findings, published in Archives of Dermatology, showed the treated armpits were drier and scored better odour ratings. The authors conclude that injections of Botox "can significantly ameliorate the intensity and improve the quality of body odour".