Old People Smell

[Lewis]

Old People Do Smell, But Not That Badly


16 hrs ago
:toofunny:toofunny:toofunny:toofunny:toofunny:toofunny
The distinctive "old person smell" you may have picked up on when visiting your grandparents most likely wasn't your imagination, a new study indicates.
When given whiffs from pieces of pads worn under the armpits of young, middle-aged and elderly people for five consecutive nights, study participants could reliably distinguish the body odor of the elderly, who were 75 and older, the researchers found.
"The results of this study support the cross-culturally popular concept of an 'old person odor,'" writes the international team in a study published today (May 30) in the journal PLoS ONE.

The notion that the elderly have a distinct smell exists in multiple cultures, and usually the odor is said to be unpleasant. But this probably has more to do with negative perceptions of old age, rather than with the odor itself, according to study researcher Johan Lundström, an assistant professor at the Monell Chemical Senses Center in Philadelphia.
In the study, participants rated the smell of the elderly people as less intense and less unpleasant than the body odor of young people (20 to 30 years old) and middle-aged people (45 to 55 years old). This effect was driven by how the participants rated the body odor from men, who appeared to smell the worst and the strongest in middle age. The odor from women of all ages was rated as less intense than men, and closer to neutral smelling for the young and middle-aged.

The team used young people to do the sniffing for two reasons: They were more plentiful as volunteers and using participants from different age groups could potentially introduce a new layer of complexity, if age of the smeller influences how body odor is perceived, Lundström said.
He cautioned that while the participants did appear able to distinguish the elderly body odor, discriminating between age categories and correctly labeling odors from the elderly, they did not demonstrate a strong talent for it and showed low confidence in their abilities. [Personality Traits

Affect How We Smell]
It's not yet clear why body odor changes as humans age or why humans are able to pick up on these changes.
Body odors originate from an interaction between skin gland secretions and bacteria on our skin. As people age, the activity of different types of skin glands changes. This factor may contribute to the perceived change in body odor with age, the researchers write.
So far, scientists can only speculate on why this apparent signal for old age exists. Research in other animals indicates that such an odor may act as a sign of the "good genes" that have allowed a male to live into old age, making him more attractive to females. It's also possible the distinctive odor is not a direct result of age; for instance, it could be associated with increased inflammation (part of an immune response) within the bodies of the elderly, Lundström said.

You can follow LiveScience senior writer Wynne Parry on Twitter @Wynne_Parry. Follow LiveScience for the latest in science news and discoveries on Twitter @livescience and on Facebook.

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[God's_gift]

:toofunny

 

[WinterRose]

:toofunny

CUTE ... I LOVE the smell of AXE and so we got my husband and my future son in law hooked on it ... so each and every Christmas we try and get something new for them to try !!!

 

[Fedusenko]

I am reminded of bengay.

 

[elizabethbraddock]

It'll be us one day. :toofunny

 

[evenifigoalone]

Interesting. xD
I've definitely noticed that older people have a different smell--and IMO it's not a bad smell.

I believe I read somewhere that animals, like dogs, that have a sense of smell can use this to tell the age of another animal of their species.

 

[Pard]

That's why I love walking down the laundry/soap aisle at work. It is like walking down a memory lane of smells and they all relate in some way to my grandparents. Moth balls, borax, and the like! I don't see what's wrong with old people smelling. If I had a problem with that than I'd be a hypocrite because boy do I smell, and so do all the guys who are my age. We sweat like it is no body's business!

I wonder if smell has anything to do with the fact that in old age people become less able to keep themselves cool, which I would deduce is a matter of the sweat-based cooling system our body employs breaking down.

I also remember reading that women are actually more attracted to the natural smell of someone, over that of a cologne. Apparently it takes up to 2 or 3 weeks to "build" that natural smell up, but once it is there it is apparently really a good smell that women like. This is interest because another thing I saw was that over the course of 2 or 3 weeks of not washing the body becomes covered in germs, but they actually aid in the prevention of bad stuff. It is only during that period between taking a shower and fully growing your germ-shield that you are really susceptible to nasty diseases and stuff, which makes sense when you figure that the height of "uncleanliness" was in the dark ages, when people bathed like once every two or three weeks. They never let the germ-shield work and they also never cleaned themselves daily to keep the bad germs off.

Maybe I should stop showering all together...

 

[Adullam]

It makes up for the diminishing senses of sight and hearing! ;)

 

[God's_gift]

That's why I love walking down the laundry/soap aisle at work. It is like walking down a memory lane of smells and they all relate in some way to my grandparents. Moth balls, borax, and the like! I don't see what's wrong with old people smelling. If I had a problem with that than I'd be a hypocrite because boy do I smell, and so do all the guys who are my age. We sweat like it is no body's business!

I wonder if smell has anything to do with the fact that in old age people become less able to keep themselves cool, which I would deduce is a matter of the sweat-based cooling system our body employs breaking down.

I also remember reading that women are actually more attracted to the natural smell of someone, over that of a cologne. Apparently it takes up to 2 or 3 weeks to "build" that natural smell up, but once it is there it is apparently really a good smell that women like. This is interest because another thing I saw was that over the course of 2 or 3 weeks of not washing the body becomes covered in germs, but they actually aid in the prevention of bad stuff. It is only during that period between taking a shower and fully growing your germ-shield that you are really susceptible to nasty diseases and stuff, which makes sense when you figure that the height of "uncleanliness" was in the dark ages, when people bathed like once every two or three weeks. They never let the germ-shield work and they also never cleaned themselves daily to keep the bad germs off.

Maybe I should stop showering all together...

ha