Dave Whitlock, a chemical engineer and MIT graduate, says that there is no basis for assuming that bathing is a healthy practice. "No one did clinical trials on people taking showers every day," he said. "I have not taken a shower in 12 years." In fact, he says that the chemicals in our soaps and shampoos have destroyed all the friendly bacteria that once inhabited our skin and kept us clean. How often do you shower or bathe?

Whitlock first started thinking about good bacteria when a woman he was dating asked him why horses liked to roll around in the dirt during summer. "The only way that horses could evolve this behavior was if they had substantial evolutionary benefits from it," Whitlock explained. That's when he realised that for the horses, this was actually a way of keeping clean. Until then, no one had considered that skin bacteria was important and could be helpful to the body. "I didn't have a biology degree – I wasn't at an institution that was renowned for its biological research," Whitlock said. "And I was proposing something completely off the wall." He helped found the company, AOBiome, and invented a one-of-a-kind spray – called 'Mother Dirt AO+ Mist' – consisting of 'good' bacteria. Have you heard about 'Mother Dirt' before this survey?

According to Whitlock, the bacteria in the spray can serve as personal groomers, eating through sweat and oil on our skin. They feed off urea and ammonia in the sweat from the skin, turning them into nitric oxide, which is very good for the body. Nitric oxide molecules dilate blood vessels and help regulate blood pressure, along with a host of other benefits. Does this sound like a plausible reason for not bathing or showering?

"We've confused clean with sterile," added AOBiome's consumer products general manager Jasmina Aganovic. "We've taken the dirt out of our lives. We don't spend as much time outdoors as we used to, even little children." Do you agree with this statement?