Body odor has been a subject of interest since olden times. The attention body odor still gets is fascinating especially when an intriguing study titled ‘The Smell of Age: Perception and Discrimination of Body Odors of Different Ages’ by Dr. Johan Lundström and colleagues, Monell University, Philadelphia, shows that the smell of older people is ‘less intense and less unpleasant than body odors originating from Young and Middle-age donors’. Dr. Lundström shares more details of his study with Medindia.
Q.In the study conducted, did the weight of the person have any impact on body odor?
Is There a Connection Between Body Smell and Age?
There appears to be some clue about age of a person from body smell,as some people are able to correctly guess a person's age just by the smell of their body.
There appears to be some clue about age of a person from body smell,as some people are able to correctly guess a person's age just by the smell of their body.
Q.Under warm temperatures, people who weigh more tend to sweat more, would the amount of sweat secretion change the impression of body odor?
A. Yes, the more you sweat the more body odor you tend to emit. Also, if a person is obese and has skin flaps, body odor accumulates under the ‘flaps’ and becomes a breeding ground for bacteria.
Sense of Smell Enhanced by Anxiety
A new study has suggested that anxious people have a heightened sense of smell when it comes to sniffing out a threat.
A new study has suggested that anxious people have a heightened sense of smell when it comes to sniffing out a threat.
A. The general health requirements are described in the article. A state of good general health, good olfactory senses, no history of head injury and non-smokers were our selection criteria. Fifty percent of our subjects were students from UPENN or DREXEL University and the other fifty percent were representatives of the local population, which is predominantly African-American. We did not add race or ethnicity as part of our criteria because that would have been too many experimental factors.
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Sense of Smell and Social Insecurity
A new study says that people born without a sense of smell experience higher social insecurity.
A new study says that people born without a sense of smell experience higher social insecurity.
A. Volunteers were asked to refrain from eating spicy food and foods that we know would affect a person’s body odor such as garlic, asparagus, certain spices and of course food additives.
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Regardless of Age, Male Fruit Flies Prefer Females With Youthful Smell
A new study has indicated that a sexy, youthful smell may make up for advancing age in fruit flies.
A new study has indicated that a sexy, youthful smell may make up for advancing age in fruit flies.
A. We have data (yet to be published) demonstrating that the chemosignals are not affected by deodorants and perfumes, however an antiperspirant might. In this case, allowing people to use perfume of their choice would have biased the data since these tend to be age-dependent preferences.
Q.Why were sexual preferences a factor?
A. Previous studies (see studies by Dr. Charles Wysocki and Dr. Ivanka Savic) have demonstrated that sexual preference does affect not only odor preference but a person’s body odor itself.
Q.Three age groups were selected, all of them were adults, if the comparison should be between body odor of old people to that of infants (most of them have lactic smell) how would the results fare?
A. I believe that the discrimination performance would be even greater since infants tend to have a very characteristic odor.
The study conducted by Dr Johan Lundström does make interesting reading and can be accessed at http://www.plosone.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0038110
Source-Medindia
