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Your Smell Has Meaning: The Research Behind Body Odor · A Capture Deep Vibs A Positive Space For Inspiration And Embracing Of Heart

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  Speaker 1: What do you smell like? Do you know? Go ahead,
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  Speaker 1: smell your armpits.
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  Speaker 2: Well, we may just catch a whiff of our smelly
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  Speaker 2: armpits after a long workout and think nothing much of it. Besides, dang,
• 0:13
  Speaker 2: I'm stinky. There may actually be something else going on.
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  Speaker 2: According to research, our body odor can surprisingly reveal a
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  Speaker 2: few interesting things about us. We know what you're thinking. Really? How?
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  Speaker 2: but there's some pretty fascinating studies, some published by renowned
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  Speaker 2: researchers on what exactly our scent may say about us,
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  Speaker 2: even if we're unaware initially what those things are. So
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  Speaker 2: we're about to break down some scent studies for you.
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  Speaker 2: Here are a few of the things our body odor
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  Speaker 2: reveals about us. Number one, if you're attracted to someone,
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  Speaker 2: do you have a crush? Are you hoping they're just
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  Speaker 2: as attracted to you as you are to them? Well,
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  Speaker 2: you may wanna pile on the fragrance or not. Swiss
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  Speaker 2: biological researcher Klaus Wedekind is known for his famous 1995
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  Speaker 2: sweaty t-shirt study. In the study, researchers had 44 men
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  Speaker 2: wear a clean cotton t-shirt for two nights when they slept.
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  Speaker 2: The men were told to keep the t-shirts in an
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  Speaker 2: open plastic bag when they weren't wearing it. They were
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  Speaker 2: also given odor-free deodorants and told not to eat any
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  Speaker 2: spicy foods or participate in any activities that could affect
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  Speaker 2: the smell of their t-shirt. The day after the male
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  Speaker 2: participants two nights in these cotton t-shirts The researchers then
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  Speaker 2: placed the shirts in identical boxes and had 49 women
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  Speaker 2: smell each box one at a time. T-shirts were separated
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  Speaker 2: into boxes based off the MHC genes. Three shirts that
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  Speaker 2: were similar MHC genes in a box and three shirts
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  Speaker 2: from males with dissimilar MHC genes. Where possible, women smelled
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  Speaker 2: the shirts during the second week of their menstrual cycle.
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  Speaker 2: So what did the researchers find? Women who weren't on
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  Speaker 2: oral contraceptives preferred the men with MHC genes different from theirs.
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  Speaker 2: This was after they rated the scents based on their pleasantness, intensity,
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  Speaker 2: and sexiness. The study even states that the odors of
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  Speaker 2: MHC dissimilar men remind the test women more often of
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  Speaker 2: their own actual or former mates than do the odors
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  Speaker 2: of MHC similar men.
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  Speaker 1: So did your crush turn you down? It could just
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  Speaker 1: be due to your dissimilar MHC genes, my friend.
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  Speaker 2: Too bad.
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  Speaker 1: Or they just weren't feeling it. Nah, it's probably your armpits.
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  Speaker 2: Number two, if you're ill, did you know that your
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  Speaker 2: scent can reveal if you're sick? A study published in
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  Speaker 2: European Neurology found that a dog trained to recognize the
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  Speaker 2: smell of prostate cancer could identify 30 out of 33
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  Speaker 2: prostate cancer patients correctly based on the smell of their
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  Speaker 2: urine samples. Time to train Buster. Open the toilet seat.
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  Speaker 2: But what about t-shirt smells again? Well, in another study,
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  Speaker 2: researchers injected subjects with a compound that would mess with
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  Speaker 2: their immune system, making it seem as if they were sick.
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  Speaker 2: The researchers then had other participants smell their t-shirts. And
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  Speaker 2: you guessed it, the participants could identify which people were
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  Speaker 2: more likely sick. Number three, if you're extroverted, neurotic, or dominant.
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  Speaker 1: Are you extroverted, dominant, neurotic?
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  Speaker 2: Unsure? Time to smell your armpits. A 2012 study published
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  Speaker 2: in the European Journal of Personality found that people who
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  Speaker 2: were neurotic or dominant could be identified by their scent.
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  Speaker 2: How did they collect these scent samples, you may ask?
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  Speaker 2: You guessed it, cotton t-shirts. A classic. 30 male and
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  Speaker 2: 30 female subjects wore a cotton t-shirt for three days straight.
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  Speaker 2: Then 100 males and 100 females rated the t-shirt scent.
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  Speaker 2: The ratings were then compared to a self-assessed personality test
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  Speaker 2: the t-shirt-wearing subjects took before. There was a connection from
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  Speaker 2: scent to three personality types, extroversion, dominance, and neuroticism. Subjects
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  Speaker 2: with those self-assessed personality traits had specific scents that kept
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  Speaker 2: being identified from the participants who rated those smelly teas.
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  Speaker 1: Number four. reveals your age. Can someone smell their age?
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  Speaker 2: A 2012 study published in the PLOS One found that
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  Speaker 2: the elderly actually have a specific scent. The study states,
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  Speaker 2: body odors were sampled from three distinct age groups, young,
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  Speaker 2: 20 to 30 years old, middle age, 45 to 55,
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  Speaker 2: and old age, 75 to 95 individuals. Perpetual ratings and
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  Speaker 2: age discrimination performance were assessed in 41 young participants. Were
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  Speaker 2: these body odors sampled from cotton t-shirts? We may never know,
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  Speaker 2: but the study findings are pretty interesting. The study explains,
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  Speaker 2: participants were able to discriminate between age categories with body
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  Speaker 2: odor from old age donors mediating the effect also after
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  Speaker 2: removing variants explained by intensity differences. Similarly, participants were able
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  Speaker 2: to correctly assign age labels to body odors originating from
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  Speaker 2: old age donors, but not to body odors originating from
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  Speaker 2: other age groups. So do old people have a distinct smell?
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  Speaker 2: According to this study, they may. And no, it's not
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  Speaker 2: the smell of old books or chicken casserole. Number five,
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  Speaker 2: what foods you eat and if you drink alcohol often.
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  Speaker 2: Did you know some foods do indeed contribute to your
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  Speaker 2: body odor? Yeah, you probably know that you smell like
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  Speaker 2: the garlic fries you scarfed down an hour ago, but still,
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  Speaker 2: that sweaty cotton t-shirt you're wearing probably smells like garlic too.
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  Speaker 2: And not just because you dropped a couple fries on it.
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  Speaker 2: The Berkeley Wellness Center actually lists some foods that can
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  Speaker 2: affect your body odor. Red meat, cabbage, alcohol, they can
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  Speaker 2: mess with your scent. Notably, eating many foods high in
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  Speaker 2: sulfur can cause the body to excrete that high quantity
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  Speaker 2: of sulfur from the body through sweat. Looks like junk
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  Speaker 2: food can also make you smell a specific way too.
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  Speaker 2: An article from HuffPost explains that it's thought that the
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  Speaker 2: sugar present in the blood after eating junk food alters
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  Speaker 2: the makeup of perspiration in some people when it combines
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  Speaker 2: with bacteria on the skin, leading to changes in odor.
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  Speaker 2: So if you don't want to smell like your blood
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  Speaker 2: is sugary, then take it easy on the junk food
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  Speaker 2: for a while. Who knows what that cotton t-shirt smells
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  Speaker 2: like after that plate of nachos?
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  Speaker 1: Probably cheese.
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  Speaker 2: So, were you surprised about what your scent can reveal
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  Speaker 2: about you? feel free to let us know in the
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  Speaker 2: comments down below. Odds are your crush won't consciously decline
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  Speaker 2: your date invite due to your scent. That is, unless
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  Speaker 2: you just got done eating garlic fries when you asked
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  Speaker 2: them up close in their ear, inches away from their nostrils.
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  Speaker 1: Garlic fries and nachos, cheesy, worth it.
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