The Science Behind Our Scents and that of our Friends

We all have body odor although some people have body odor than others making them intensely odiferous but then we need to understand that it isn't like they smell like the sewer you know unless they did go into the sewer for some reason or the other but when you see people who have more natural body odor you sure are not comfortable around them.

You see, the odor from a person is caused by the microbes living around the apocrine sweat gland. Actually, when we sweat, they do not smell at all but due to the microbe utilizing them for their growth. They consume the sweat and release substances that causes the sweat to sweat for instance, Staph microbes turn sweat in armpits into sulfurous thioalcohol which is stenchy. In other part of the body, such as sweat in the leg where microbes turn lactate from sweat in the leg to diacetyl which is why your feet have that stinky smell.

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Our genetic makeup plays a significant role in determining the types of bacteria that colonize our bodies. Genes not only dictate our physical traits but also influence our immune system and microbial composition. Certain bacteria may thrive in specific individuals due to genetic predispositions.

A research done by in the UK and Austria where identical and fraternal twins were gathered and sniffed. These twins did not live together but scientist wanted to confirm if their genes could make them smell similarly. The participants put cotton pads in their armpit over the night after which the sniffers sniffed 5 cotton pads sample and were asked to identify which ones were identical. At the end of the sniffing, 43 out of the 113 sniffers were able to identify correctly the twins with identical DNA as the identical twins smelled similar while the fraternal twins didn't.

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Have you noticed that people with stronger body odor do not often find their smell awful? I was at a salon one day when I overheard a lady saying that another lady smelled like garlic, and when she told the lady, she said she had never smelled bad and liked her aroma. Something of such was scientifically researched in the year 1980 when researchers asked participant to perceive their own body smell against that of other people and they came back saying they preferred their body smell to that of other people.

Another research in Cornell University recruited high school students and their friends to a research on human recognition of odor where they were to show that a person's friend have the same odor as them. The study showed we are likely to have a predisposition to people that smell like us, and people in that study took their friend's shirts thinking it were theirs. In a 2022 study, it showed that people who smelled like one another were better friends using nose and e-nose to differentiate smells from fast friends and random people and it was seen that fast friends smelled similar.

Further studies have delved into the role of scent in social dynamics. Research has shown that individuals who click on the first day of interaction and share commonalities tend to have similar body odors. However, while scent similarity may indicate social compatibility, it is not a definitive predictor of friendship or compatibility, as numerous factors influence interpersonal relationships.

However, it's essential to recognize that scent alone isn't a definitive indicator of compatibility or friendship. While emerging research sheds light on the role of body odor in human interactions, numerous factors influence social connections. As ongoing studies continue to unravel the mysteries of scent perception, we gain a deeper understanding of the subtle yet profound ways in which our olfactory senses shape our social experiences.

Reference

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0022202X15462256
https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv.abn0154
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9405088/
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/0162309580900096?via%3Dihub
https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0111833
https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10886-006-9098-8
https://academic.oup.com/chemse/article/30/8/651/398759?login=false
https://elifesciences.org/articles/34995