|
Men
Sense Fertility In Women
NEW
YORK (Reuters Health) - Could love truly be in the air? Researchers
in Texas believe men become especially attuned--and attracted
to--female body odors during the most fertile stage of the menstrual
cycle.
``These findings
raise serious doubts about conventional scientific wisdom that
human female ovulation is concealed...and that men cannot detect
when women are ovulating,'' according to Drs. Devendra Singh and
P. Matthew Bronstad, psychologist researchers at the University
of Texas in Austin.
Some studies
have suggested that female physiology and behavior change in subtle
ways during ovulation. For example, one study suggested that women's
bodies undergo aesthetic changes--such as a subtle alteration
in skin tone--as they approach and pass through ovulation.
But is any
of this picked up by men? To find out, Singh and Bronstad collected
a month's worth of T-shirts worn by 19 female college students.
The T-shirts were then handed out at random to 52 men, each of
whom was asked to smell each garment, rating its odor for ``intensity,''
``pleasantness,'' and ''sexiness.''
None of the
men were previously acquainted with any of the women, nor were
they informed of the nature of the research. And the women were
told to avoid perfumes and given unscented products--such as soap,
laundry detergent and shampoo--to use during the month of T-shirt
wearing.
The result?
Men consistently rated the odors of T-shirts worn during the most
fertile stage of the menstrual cycle ``as more pleasant and sexy
than odors from T-shirts worn during the non-ovulatory luteal
phase,'' the authors report in the Proceedings of the Royal Society
of London.
The power
of these olfactory cues to ovulation did not seem to dim over
time--men favored T-shirts worn during ovulation even when presented
with garments last worn 7 days previously.
``These findings
suggest that ovulation may not be concealed and that men could
use ovulation-linked odors in their mate selection,'' Singh and
Bronstad conclude.
SOURCE:
Proceedings of the Royal Society of London 2001;268:797-801.
Reference
Source 89
For
more information on how to prevent other diseases, use
PreventDisease.com's "Quick
Prevention Resources".
|
