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Subscribe to RSSWould-be lovers wondering whether to go forward with a new relationship might heed the advice of Russian scientists: Take a deep whiff.
Sniffing a potential partner’s scent could tell whether Mr. Right has a sexually transmitted disease, according to a small study that found that gonorrhea-infected men smelled “putrid” to a bevy of young ladies.
“Our research revealed that infection disease reduces odor attractiveness in humans …” wrote Mikhail Moshkin, a professor at the Institute of Cytology and Genetics in Novosibirsk, Russia, and the lead author of research published in the most recent issue of the Journal of Sexual Medicine.
The off-putting scent may be subtle, more a chemical warning than a blast of body odor, but it definitely has an effect, according to the experiment conducted by Moshkin and his colleagues.
The researchers had long observed that certain animals, such as mice and rats, were not as attracted to the scents of other critters when they were infected with disease. They wondered whether humans, too, would be turned off by the scent of an infected person, particularly one harboring an STD.
So they invited 34 strapping Russian guys, ages 17 to 25, to donate samples of armpit sweat and spit for the cause of science. The group included 13 young men with gonorrhea, 16 who were healthy and five who had had the disease but were successfully treated.
Then they found 18 female students aged 17 to 20 from Kemerovo State University in Russia who were willing to serve as sweat-sniffers.
They obtained sweat samples by dressing the men in tight-fitting T-shirts with cotton pads sewn into the armpits. After an hour of sweating, men bagged their shirts and the pads were placed in glass vials for the women to sniff.
The results couldn’t have been more obvious. The women ranked the infected men less than half as high as healthy or recovered guys on a “pleasantness score” that assessed scent.
And when they were asked to characterize the scent, the gals said that nearly 50 percent of the infected men’s sweat smelled “putrid." (To be fair, the gals also said that 30 percent of sweat from healthy men and less than 40 percent of sweat from treated men smelled putrid, but these are guys -- and it was significantly higher for the gonorrhea group.)
The take-away message, the researchers found, was that it appears that humans, like other animals, might use scent to sniff out appropriate mates.
“We can conclude that unpleasant body odor of infected persons can reduce the probability of a dangerous partnership,” the scientists say.
Heeding olfactory cures might not signal the right partner, but they could warn against the wrong one – unless, of course, the guy uses deodorant.
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Leave a Comment:
If my ass looks like bread dough, does that mean I have a yeast infection?
Sounds like you'd be a good candidate for medical marijuana...
...you should get baked.
LMFAO
Ten bucks says this will feature prominently in a new Axe Body Spray commercial.
Rule of thumb, if you smell like ass and socks after shower; might be a good time to get your ass checked....if not, you certainly are not soring any time soon...chicks dont dig bums
Pun intended, Doc?
;)
Oh my god you guys. Haha!
That is so fuuny
Grooossssss! Thanks, dude, you killed the mood for me tonight.
what you eat you our and that's how you smell, go to different places in the world and tell me this is not true.
If it smells like fishy yogurt, time to shower, boys.
Gross. I'm trying to eat breakfast here.
Taco Bell gives me syphillis?
Not if you "run for the border" in time.
Now before all you teabaggers start screaming about the amount of tax dollars wasted on this study, let me remind you since you apparently HAVE NOT read the article and are only going by the headline, that this study was done in Russia.
No US tax dollars were harmed in the making of this study.
Jesus Christ. Quit making everything political. What the hell is wrong with you?
LMAO UP. You know someone who reads this will think exactly what you have said. Cracking me up. BOB - just realize it was a 'joke' nothing more...
Thats odd ..... and here my first thought was the lunatic left elitists would be screaming about wasting tax thefts on research for the common good instead of flushing it down the toilet with social welfare programs that just increase the problems. Of course the perspective of extreme right wing and the wrong wing elements are not logical.
Yeah, seriously. Next he's going to start calling you a liberal/right/left wing/occupier/hippie.
@ ItsAboutTime-3704531
It doesnt matter if its a joke, keep politics out of non political stuff. I'm so tired about hearing about politics. I stopped reading political news, and I am still forced to hear some asshat making a political joke. This article has nothing to do with politics at all.
Its not even funny, making fun of the tea party was funny YEARS ago. That joke would only be funny to people who watch Jay Leno
Now now, I think (hope?) we can all agree that ignorance spans party lines. And, Up is spot-on in trying to head off the "how much did this stupid study cost me" comments that accompany EVERY article about scientific research on the Vine.
Oh Bob, get the stick out of your ass and lighten up for pete's sake! You know SOMEONE was going to start screaming about the amount of tax dollars being spent on a study that wasn't even done in this country!
About 80% of all US research dollars are spent on defense related R&D. That is the percentage of ALL money spent in that field, both public and private.
EU spends less than 10% of it's research money on defense related projects.
I'm actually not surprised. In nature, animals often have no other way to detect if a possible mate is the right one to rear offspring with. Scents have a lot to do with an animal's overall health and genetic prowess. Only the strongest and most healthy would be considered to pass on their genes.
In humans, there's obviously a bit more than that when considering a life partner. It's still not surprising that scent would have something to do with detecting a person's health, however. Weird to say, but I knew I would stay with my current significant, in part, because he naturally smelled so good!
I agree, and this is not the first study to show that even human beings, particularly women, use scent when finding a sexual partner. They've even found that women find men's scents more attractive when they are ovulating than any other time in their cycle.
And any woman will tell you that nothing can turn a woman on or off faster than whether a man smells good or bad.
And vice versa.
It probably would be easier to assume everyone is a harbinger of disease, rather than thinking wow you smell could you must be clean! ;)
Well said
I've heard there are dogs which are actually able to smell cancer in people. Since canines have a more pronounced sense of smell than humans, it's rather surprising to consider it's possible for people to 'sniff' out a disease.
Also, saw a tv show quite a while back reporting a story about a cat in a nursing home that could tell when an elderly person was about to pass away and would sit next to the bed or by the person's door to their room, only for one of the staff to find that individual dead soon after. (This apparently happened on many occasions.) Is that weird or what? I find it fascinating.
as Egyptians believe cats are the guardians of the dead, yes this makes alot of sense.
I am surprised that in such a small sampling, only 13 infected men and then 7 of the sick were rated as healthy and 5 of the 16 healthy men were rated as infected is significant. Only 9% positive correlation subtract margin of error and it almost proves nothing. Seems they want to publish what they wanted to believe.
Given that the majority of the population does not understand statistics and their interpretation (including me!), it does not surprise me that this article was posted on the MSM as being legitimate.
To be fair, this article was a no-brainer. Humans have always "known" that we are attracted to our partners by numerous attributes, of which olfactory attraction noted as being quite important. I'm not really sure if it takes a university research project to uncover this, but oh well.
Even that being said, a small sample size does indeed impact the overall conclusions that are reached. One cannot deem any important research as concrete with such a small number of participants, but at least it points research into a meaningful direction. We see this in medical science all the time. Even bad, or poorly done, research can at least provide good ideas, it just can't be considered legitimate without further studies to correlate and confirm the outcomes.
As for this article, well, this was just sensationalism at its best. Another article to pique people's interest....nothing more.
So I guess it worked, eh Indy?
Most men wear deodorant so this article is useless.
Most American men, anyway....
Obviously a poor study. If it were true that STD's could be detected even subconsciously the spread of STD's would have never happened.
I wonder if it is still true since guys still have some sort of scent after they use deodorant. And yes, some guys smell bad even though you can tell they showered before work. A weird mix of irish spring and nastiness. My husband can not shower all weekend but he still smells good to me lol. Pheromones I guess.
And Russian Men shave their arm pits..........True!
Call me a bit skeptical, not that I dispute the possibility that this may be true, but this study seems to have a rather small sample size. I realize that the statistical sample size meets the small group threshold, but I am still a bit leery about studies like this one.
Stay classy Russia.
I'm sorry I read past the headline on this one.
Hey wait a minute...what about the scent of a woman..."Al Pacino"....... what does a woman with std smell like? Or is it that they can mask their problem with the plethora of perfume/fragrances the market offers?
It's pretty hard to mask the odor of tuna oil and anchovies, wheeewwww!
I have found numerous females over the years who think a quick splash over the ole "cat scratcher" is good enough, either water of some kind of smell good. But after sitting with legs closed for an hour, or on the dance floor, they uncork that dead fish smell that makes rats, big rats, puke their guts out.
Female are careless with hygiene, often overlooking their best parts, and paying too much time dressing up, resurfacing, repainting the outside.
I don't know what an STD smell like, no one does. But I am acquainted, unfortunately, with the smell of a rotting whale.
Dude all I have to say to you is, you better change the type of women you are dating or the clubs you are meeting them at. I have been married twice and dated other women in between marriages and I have yet to have one smell.
Many Senseless Nerds Broadcasting Crap
You're quickly becoming devoid of anything informative, msnbc.
you must smell putrid
people are filthy wrap it up
But what else were they infected with? Someone who has an STD has a very high chance of having another.
I've heard about this before and always wondered if it was true. I was at a friend's house the other day sitting on a love seat type couch these two girls showed up and one of them sat on the couch next to me, I immediately spelled something so putrid and nasty I got up and sat on a bar stool across the room. I mean I could understand if this was like the smell of someone who just got done with a shift in a restaurant kitchen or something of the sort, but this wasn't the smell of burgers, deep fried food, and sweat. It was a smell I can't for the life of me define in words other than it was nasty and so unbearable I had to move across the room.
The old bucket of dead carp left in the hot sun?
Moving on to guys who take bath once a week and never floss---
And women put out some peculiar odors of their own, most times unsuccessfully disguised with massive doses of FDS-- especially the Big Gals. And Fido is forever poking his nose into someone else's business
I've always smelled my dates panties before doing anything with the!
What if she's not wearing panties?
Even better! smell away my friends
It would be kind of nice to be able to detect herpes via your pet when you bring a date home. You know, just in case they are horny enough to lie about it. Some people actually ENJOY having herpes free genitals thanks to the barstool whore deciding go home with someone else.
Yeah. I think that's basically the theory that the multi-billion dollar per year perfume and cologne industry operates under. . .
Maybe next they should have men smell the clothes of women with yeast infection. YUCK, there is nothing worse.
Is that why STDs so high here? Too many scents to cover the natural smell. "Bad" smells aren't actually bad, they're good. I hate it that perfume covers up those smells underneath. I love the smell of a naturally clean woman. But too many woman are afraid. STOP the perfume and scents!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
The time frame between when the samples were collected and smelled could easily skew this study due to the rapid generation time of bacteria.
Don't read too much into this study till more details are included such as if the infections were active, treated recently or if other medical problems in those STD infected men could also contribute to the smell. Heck, even diet (Asparagus anyone) can affect the way you smell.
we women, especially have to keep ourselves clean in the vaginal area.
Umm thats an unattractive thought. *shudders*
Women are the only ones that can keep themselves clean in the vaginal area.
Check out
The strip clubs usually smell like fish and butt and putridity's and smoke and booze and perfume and cologne. The worst thing i hate is when a girl rubs her butt all over you, i don't mind if I'm naked or something like that but I just pulled my shirt out of the dryer I don't want a poop stain on it.
Dude. I don't want poop stains on my shirt either, so I go to strip clubs where women wash their asses.
Still, your comment cracks me up every time I read it.
LOL! The heterosexual males in this forum are like 6th graders.
Thanks guys. Now I have to go to the strip club. The girls at this one smell pretty good.