Is sniffing someone else’s BODY SMELL the key to curing social anxiety?

Some of the more traditional treatments for anxiety include psychotherapy, medication, and self-help.

But now researchers have come up with a slightly more gruesome alternative: sniffing someone else’s body odor.

European experts obtained armpit sweat from volunteers and showed it to patients when they were undergoing mindfulness therapy for social anxiety.

They found that anxiety was reduced by more than a third compared to using mindfulness therapy alone, but the reasons for this are still unclear.

It is already known that human body odor, commonly known as BO, causes aggression in women, but blocks aggression in men.

Human body odors are believed to convey important social signals through a unique and complex combination of molecules.  A group of European researchers have shown that exposure to human odors extracted from other people's sweat can be used to improve the treatment of some mental health problems (file photo)

Human body odors are believed to convey important social signals through a unique and complex combination of molecules. A group of European researchers have shown that exposure to human odors extracted from other people’s sweat can be used to improve the treatment of some mental health problems (file photo)

The new study was led by Elisa Vigna of the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm and presented at the European Psychiatry Congress in Paris this weekend.

What do we know about body odor?

All animals, including humans, have a distinct body odour.

Our smell is largely determined by genetics, but diseases and physiological conditions can influence it.

Hot weather, exercise, and medications can also change our smell.

Human smells may have been more important to our early ancestors.

While previous research has shown that we are more attracted to people who smell different than us, new results suggest otherwise.

Similarly, contrary to popular belief, smell seems to be more important to men than to women.

“Our state of mind causes us to produce molecules or chemical signals in our sweat that communicate our emotional state and trigger corresponding responses in receivers,” she said.

“The results of our preliminary study indicate that combining these chemosignals with mindfulness therapy appears to produce better results in the treatment of social anxiety than can be achieved with mindfulness therapy alone.”

Exposure to human odors extracted from other people’s sweat can be used to improve the treatment of some mental health problems, Vigna said.

“We hope this can lead to a new way of helping people with social anxiety disorder; for example, improving the effectiveness of selected eHealth interventions, such as meditation apps, or providing additional options for those who are not responding to current treatment,” she said.

For the study, Vigna and his colleagues collected sweat samples from volunteers who watched short clips from films of various genres.

These films were chosen to identify specific emotional states, such as fear or happiness, to see if certain emotions experienced while sweating affect the results.

Clips from “scary” films included horror films such as “The Grudge”, while “happy” clips included material from “Mr. Bean’s Holiday” and “Sister Action”.

After collecting sweat, the researchers recruited 48 women (ages 15 to 35), all of whom suffered from social anxiety, and divided them into three groups of 16 each.

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The connection in BO reduces connectivity in the parts of the brain that govern social decision making in women, including the decision to become aggressive, and in men increases that connectivity.  This 3D rendering of the brain shows the areas where the difference between women and men was most pronounced (yellow-orange).

The connection in BO reduces connectivity in the parts of the brain that govern social decision making in women, including the decision to become aggressive, and in men increases that connectivity. This 3D rendering of the brain shows the areas where the difference between women and men was most pronounced (yellow-orange).

Over the course of two days, they all underwent mindfulness therapy for social anxiety, which usually includes meditation, relaxation exercises, and mindfulness.

Each group was exposed to different odors obtained from sweat samples of people who watched different types of video clips, as well as the control group, which was exposed to clean air.

The team found that people who underwent one session of mindfulness therapy along with exposure to human body odors showed an approximately 39 percent reduction in anxiety scores.

By comparison, the mindfulness-only group—the control group—had only a 17 percent reduction in anxiety scores after one treatment session.

But it turned out that the type of movie watched did not affect the results.

“We found that the women in the group exposed to the sweat of people who had watched funny or scary movies responded better to mindfulness therapy than those who were not exposed,” Viña said.

“We were a little surprised to find that the emotional state of the sweat-producing person did not differ in treatment outcomes—sweat produced when someone was happy had the same effect as a person being frightened by a movie clip.

“So there could be something in the human chemical signal of sweat in general that influences the response to treatment.”

Viña emphasizes that this is a proof-of-concept study, so they are now embarking on a larger study to confirm the results.

Social anxiety is a common mental health condition in which people are overly anxious about participating in social situations (file photo)

Social anxiety is a common mental health condition in which people are overly anxious about participating in social situations (file photo)

They are also working with analysts at the University of Pisa who have been able to identify over 300 individual compounds in human sweat.

The researchers hope if they can identify and isolate the molecules causing the effects seen in the study.

Back in 2021, researchers focused on a specific a chemical compound found in BO called hexadecanal (HEX) and its effects on the human brain.

Unlike many body odor compounds, HEX has no noticeable odor to humans, but it is likely to be detectable by all mammals and found in abundance on the head of newborns.

The researchers found that HEX reduced connectivity in the parts of the brain that govern social decision making in women, including the decision to become aggressive, while in men it increased that connectivity.

As an evolutionary tool thousands of years ago, the HEX on a baby’s head likely suppressed aggression in males to reduce their chances of harming an infant.

Farewell BO! Scientists have developed an antimicrobial lining made from silver and chemicals found in wine and chocolate that eliminates body odor.

in Scientists Japan developed an ultra-thin antimicrobial pad to eliminate human body odor, commonly known as BO.

The lining, developed at the University of Tokyo, is less than 10 nanometers thick and is made up of germ-killing silver and tannic acid, a type of polyphenol.

Polyphenols are organic compounds found in chocolate and red wine, but responsible for their infamous ability to stain clothes and tablecloths.

The lining, developed at the University of Tokyo, is less than 10 nanometers thick and is composed of silver and tannic acid, a type of polyphenol.  The binding power of tannic acid is so strong that the coated textiles tested by the researchers retained their antimicrobial and anti-odor properties for at least 10 washes.

The lining, developed at the University of Tokyo, is less than 10 nanometers thick and is composed of silver and tannic acid, a type of polyphenol. The binding power of tannic acid is so strong that the coated textiles tested by the researchers retained their antimicrobial and anti-odor properties for at least 10 washes.

Luckily, the researchers’ coating, dubbed Ag/TA, is completely transparent so it won’t discolour textiles, but most importantly, it’s washable.

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