The Scent of a Woman.

Do human pheromones exist?

Sometimes called “ecto-hormones”, they may help or hurt your upcoming date, strengthen or weaken your love life, promote gaining or losing friends, decide the outcome of your job interview and even secure or compromise your child’s health. Surprised? Don’t be. Just look carefully into this issue and do your best to use biology in your favor when possible.

The term pheromone is derived from ancient Greek ”pheran” – to carry, and “horman” – to excite. They are a diverse group of chemical messengers
used by animals to communicate fear, aggression, attraction, sexual excitation and many other signals to the members of their own species. We are going to discuss here sex attractants in particular.

Insects are not the only ones to fly for miles upwind drawn by the sent of their females. It is easy to picture canines, felines and other mammals lead by the noses to their mates in heat. Many primates like lemurs and other prosimians rely more on their well developed sense of smell than on their poor eye sight and mark the trees with their pheromones to induce the pursuit by possible mates. Humans are not much different in this respect. Human pheromones released by one individual are capable of changing the physiology and behavior of others. Or else, why do the menstrual cycles of women living together tend to synchronize?

Those short polypeptide chains released under the armpits, forehead, groin and other areas with more or less hair growth are the hot topic of many modern studies. Subconsciously men can sense when women are ovulating even though humans do not possess Jacobson’s organ in the roof of their mouth like felines do and cannot detect animal carcasses 20 miles away like bears do. There must be a reason the neuron pathway from the chemical receptors in the back of nasal cavity in humans to the olfactory bulb in the brain is the shortest as compared to all the rest of the senses ( even compared to the distance from eye retina to visual centers back in the occipital part of the brain).

So how can we use the knowledge of human pheromones existence to our benefit regardless of their possible amino acid structure? Expect this part to be quite controversial and shocking but most entertaining. Since it is mostly based upon inductive rather than deductive reasoning we do welcome any related comments, arguments and your own life stories. So be ware, here we go!

1. The love “chemistry” we are quite aware of is identified by the genetic match between the people since pheromones are proteins and therefore are coded by the sequence of nucleotides on your DNA. There are no way dating site pictures or social networks could provide this information for anybody. In fact, your possible real matches are often overlooked and dismissed and many wrong ones are picked out just because this vital piece of biological information is missing. You have to be in the same environment with your prospective partner to find the match. It doesn’t matter if he or she went to Harvard or Yale if genetic match is overlooked. Cannot fool the Mother Nature.

2. The use of steroid drugs and hormonal birth control pills alters the work of hypothalamus via the negative feed back control and therefore distorts production and release of both endo- and ecto-hormones in men and women. You may attract (get attracted) to genetically non-matching individuals and feel repulsive and reject (or get rejected by) your best genetic match. More and more marriages assembled for the wrong unnatural reasons are invading the human race. Overuse of hormonal drugs and contraceptives in the past decades coincides with the growing numbers of autistic and otherwise negatively afflicted children born to these marriages.

3. Have you heard about hormone based “sex drive solution” perfumes? Stay away! Do not distort your own unique pheromone scent. Similar to pheromone moth traps, those tons of individuals genetically matching Channel, Dior, Imperial Nights, and anything but you will soon reveal your trick and find out the sense was “leased”. Neither you nor they will ever consciously understand what hit them and why they left you after a few dates and/or cheated on you with your best friend. You are really better of using a relaxing pumpkin pie, lavender or cinnamon bun scent shown to be sexually stimulating and arousing without endocrine disruption.

4. The love “chemistry” works best within short distances and takes time to trigger the responses within the limbic system of the brain. Hang around your prospective match in close vicinity and give it enough time before acting up or pushing the relationship. Do not rely on looks, they may be deceptive. But even the best surgeon won’t be able to change the genetics and therefore pheromones. Cannot fool the Mother Nature.

5. There is no need to try hard to alter your physical appearance and inheritance. Why do it? There will be enough genetic “matches” for your unique genetic makeup, infatuated by your unique pheromones and sincerely loving your unique looks, weight, height, hair, color, etc. By drastic makeovers, fad diets and over exercising, or resorting to corrective surgery you are actually “hiding” the real you and making it harder for your true love to find you. There needs to be a correlation between the genotype and the phenotype, don’t try to fool the Mother Nature.

What’s the big deal about the genetic match, you might wonder, aren’t good looks and/or money enough for happiness? May be there are other reasons besides the nose job for people like Jennifer Aniston to have problems finding their true love?

It is sure possible. But please do not confuse genetic “match” with genetic similarity and kinship. The recessive diseases, mental retardation and horrific deformities brought about by incest are well documented and available for your view at hundreds of sites. Genetic “match” we define here by the highest possible genetic variation and the most vital combination of genes the child could inherit. One aspect of concern is the immune system of the offspring. Genetically “matching” couples provide the most possible diversity of the antibody producing plasma cells (APC) for their children and therefore provide better protection against the vast variety of the harmful microorganisms and other antigens. And it is not only the APC variation that provides best protection for life; there are other aspects of the work of the white blood cells that we can review at a different time. It is not a secret that children with stronger immune system develop much fewer mental and physiological problems if any. There is a reason Mother Nature gave all of us the unique scent and the big brains to understand and appreciate the significance of it.