Recognize the age of body odor

The body odor of humans can predict the age

05/31/2012

In interpersonal relationships, body odor plays a crucial role. Only those who smell good, for example, for the mate choice in question. It is good to smell relatively and is perceived individually very different. According to US researchers, the fragrance cocktail in human sweat also reveals a person's age.

Older people have a less intense body odor
As recently US researchers in the journal „PloS ONE“ wrote, the body odor of a person can betray his age. According to this, humans are able - just like animals - to perceive and classify chemical signals of aging.

For the study, the scent donors wore a T-shirt with a sweat-absorbing patch of cloth under their armpits for five nights. The lobes with the odor samples were then placed individually in airtight glass jars, after they were previously crushed. The donors were from the age groups 20 to 30, 45 to 55 and 75 to 95 years. 41 young women and men then smelt in several rounds on two containers each with different samples. You should indicate which age group the samples came from and how intense and unpleasant they smelled. The researchers found that the testers gave significantly correct estimates of the age groups significantly. The lowest rate of misjudgment was in the samples of the elderly. Despite assumptions to the contrary, the elderly did not show a strong odor. Rather, her underarm sweating was perceived as less unpleasant than that of the young and middle-aged age group.

Humans can perceive in the body odor chemical signals of aging
Researchers have been aware for some time that certain information is transmitted via the chemical substances in the human body odor. „Humans can perceive signals in the body odor that allow us, for example, to recognize diseases, to find a suitable partner and to distinguish relatives from non-relatives“, explains study leader Johan Lundström from the Monell Chemical Senses Center in Philadelphia. However, the perception of these signals is usually subliminal and subconscious.

Studies on animals have already shown that the body odor changes during the course of life. Experts suggest that this change, for example, helps the males to exclude elderly no longer fertile females for the mate choice. The females could use the smell to identify the males, who are older and successfully survived. For the offspring, the good genes of the male could possibly be beneficial.

However, it is still unclear which of the many substances in the body odor is specifically responsible for information about age. Further studies will identify these biomarkers and also examine how the brain processes the chemical information.

Where does the body odor come from??
Everyone has a genetically determined individual body odor. Identical twins are the only exceptions because their body odor is identical. The basic body odor arises mainly from the breakdown of proteins, the so-called MHC complex. This is genetically determined and individually formed differently. According to researchers, the body odor between two humans is the closer the closer the genetic relationship is. So there is one „family odor“. This is also supported by the fact that a newborn recognizes his mother by the fragrances of the glands on the nipples. Mouse studies have shown that odors affected by the MHC complex play an important role in sexual partner choice, naturally inhibit incest, and reduce the risk of miscarriage. (Ag)

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Picture: Gerd Altmann