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Body odour all in the nose of the beholder

A man’s apparent body odour may all be in the nose of the beholder, according to US research carried out at Duke University, North Carolina, and Rockefeller University, New York.

The study, published online in the journal Nature, helps explain why the same sweaty man can smell like vanilla to some, like urine to others and for about a third of adults, have no smell at all.
“This is the first time that any human odourant receptor is associated with how we experience odours,” said Assistant Professor Hiroaki Matsunami of Duke University.

The research concentrated on the chemical androstenone which is in the sweat of men and women, but it is more highly concentrated in men. It tested sweat chemicals on most of the 400 known odour receptors used by the nose to sniff out smells and chemicals.

Next researchers tested whether variations in a gene had an impact on how people perceived the smell of androstenone in male sweat. They took blood samples and sequenced the DNA of 400 people who participated in a smell perception test done at Rockefeller.

It was found that slight genetic variations determined whether androstenone had a pungent smell, a sweet, vanilla-like smell or no smell at all for people. Apart from the smelling impacts Professor Matsunami said that there was “some evidence published showing this chemical can modify the mood or hormone levels in humans”. He said that further study would look at how smelling these chemicals might affect human social and sexual behaviour.

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