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I subscribe to The Week magazine and they've always got some unusual story printed, this comes from the 4/14/23 issue, so here we go:
"Scientists in Sweden have found a new treatment for social anxiety: Sniffing other people's body odor. Researchers at the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm who used mindfulness exercises to treat women's social anxiety found that women who were exposed to the smell of armpit sweat collected from volunteers responded better to the therapy. Researcher Elisa Vigna said her team was "a little surprised" at the result, which may indicate that sweat contains "chemo-signals" that affect emotions."
This is just a very small experiment (48 people). It's NOT a treatment. It's about finding out the importance of our sense of smell to good mental health.
Their hunch is the smell activates brain pathways linked to emotions, offering a calming effect - but it is far too soon to say if they are right.
An interesting study (only 10 subjects, so really more of an anecdote than a study) was done 50 y/a-- They collected sweat from 10 men and presented each to 10 women who were to rate the smell from neutral to foul....The also did HLA typing (the "genotyping" of its day) and found that the closer the HLA match between the woman and the man, the more foul the woman thought the scent was...
...One could easily conclude that acting (or rather, not acting) on the info would lead to a better chance of mating between those with non-matching genes, thus resulting in better mixing of the genepool.
Location: East Texas, with the Clan of the Cave Bear
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Hmmmm !
I guess I'm different. Instead of relieving any stress when I smell other folks B O I become more stressed and feel the need to get outside the range of those odors.
To each his own. The Norse folks are strange people!
Usually if I am around a "ripe" person, it inspires me to do a mega bath before my day starts with extra soap and a scrub down and a medicinal scented body lotion. Same with bad breath. I already have a pretty chemically laden mouth routine, but I double down if I happen to come across anyone with really nasty breath.
I get mortified that a human can smell like that and I want to make sure it's not me.
In a biological sense, this doesn't really surprise me but sounds as if a lot more chemical investigation would be needed to tease apart what's actually going on. Bodies give off lots of olfactory messages. After all, Homo sapiens evolved as and benefitted from being a social species. Effective and quick communication is vital. Subliminal chemical messaging would be as much if not more useful than audiovisual communication. The state of health (mental and physical) of a specific body sends messages not only to other humans but other species. Vigorous good health as well as compromised health. Here's a rabbit hole: consider why dogs might have the ability to detect serious disease (ie vulnerability) in a human. Dogs are descendants of wolves. Wolves probably viewed ancient humans as prey. A diseased human was probably an easier target and one less likely to fight back fiercely enough to injure the wolf. What we think of as BO may be the least of this olfactory messaging. Not all of these messages register as odors. Pheromones for example. They probably aren't static but change right along with a person's scent at any given time. Apparently, it isn't a one way street either. The genetic makeup of the person being offered the sample can play into their perception and responses too.
I remember when I was pregnant, my husband was putting together a crib. He had a scent from working...but I wouldn't call it BO...it wasn't smelly.
Actually, to me, there was something pretty sensual/alluring about my man working to make life good for our child...kind of a primal thing I guess, and the scent was what I'd call manly (I guess) but again...it wasn't smelly.
In a biological sense, this doesn't really surprise me but sounds as if a lot more chemical investigation would be needed to tease apart what's actually going on. Bodies give off lots of olfactory messages. After all, Homo sapiens evolved as and benefitted from being a social species. Effective and quick communication is vital. Subliminal chemical messaging would be as much if not more useful than audiovisual communication. The state of health (mental and physical) of a specific body sends messages not only to other humans but other species. Vigorous good health as well as compromised health. Here's a rabbit hole: consider why dogs might have the ability to detect serious disease (ie vulnerability) in a human. Dogs are descendants of wolves. Wolves probably viewed ancient humans as prey. A diseased human was probably an easier target and one less likely to fight back fiercely enough to injure the wolf. What we think of as BO may be the least of this olfactory messaging. Not all of these messages register as odors. Pheromones for example. They probably aren't static but change right along with a person's scent at any given time. Apparently, it isn't a one way street either. The genetic makeup of the person being offered the sample can play into their perception and responses too.
Excellent review....Many diseases are diagnosed based on changes in levels of various chemicals/enzymes in the blood (also seen in sweat). That's what the dogs sense, and wolves in the wild may use that to pick out the easier victims.
Olfactory senses are hugely important in all other mammal species in the mating urge...Why should H.Sapiens be any different (give us a break here, Crerationists, and go along with the gag)?
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