LONDON (Reuters) -
"L'eau de
grandmere'' could explain that reassuring, warm feeling that
elderly women and grandmothers always seem to convey.
It's not the latest French perfume or a new air freshener but
the name coined by American researchers for the smells they
collected from the armpits of elderly women to show that body
odors can have an impact on mood.
Researchers at the Monell Chemical Senses Center in Pennsylvania
and Rutgers University in New Jersey believe hormonal changes in
older people, particularly women, can trigger a happy,
approachable mood that can be conveyed through body smells.
"The airborne chemicals that we collected from them -- l'eau de
grandmere -- may indicate that state,'' Jeannette Haviland of
Rutgers University told New Scientist magazine.
Animals routinely use scent to convey information. Haviland and
her colleagues reasoned that body odors could influence people's
mood.
To test their theory, they collected underarm odors on gauze
pads from 30 volunteers ranging from toddlers to 70-somethings
and asked more than 300 students to assess their mood before and
after sniffing the samples.
The students were not told what the scents were.
"Old women had an uplifting effect,'' said Denise Chen of the
Monell Chemical Senses Center, adding that smells from young men
had the opposite effect.
Smells from older people and females in general produced a more
positive mood. Baby odors did not improve moods and scents from
young boys were associated with aggression.
