Smelly Warning: Body Odour Predicts Sexual Diseases in Men

Men having Sexually Transmitted Diseases (STD) emit a subtle smell which is more of a chemical warning than the stench of the body, a new study by Russian scientists has revealed.

And just sniffing a man's scent could tell a woman if he is suffering from sexually transmitted diseases, according to research published in the Journal of Sexual Medicine.

"Our research revealed that infection disease reduces odour attractiveness in humans," the MSNBC.com has quoted Mikhail Moshkin, professor at the Institute of Cytology and Genetics in Russia and the lead author of research, as saying.

Scientists had already observed that certain animals such as mice and rats were not attracted to the scents of those that were infected with the disease. Researchers tried the same scenario in humans and investigated if human beings would be able to be turned off by the scent of an infected person, especially with STDs.

Researchers conducted the experiments with the collected samples of armpit sweat and spit from 34 Russian men in the age group of 17 to 25. Out of them 13 were infected with gonorrhea, 16 were healthy and five had previous infection but were completely cured.

The sweat samples were obtained with cotton pads sewed in to the tight fitting T-shirts of men and the samples were kept in the glass vials for the women to sniff. Eighteen female students aged 17 to 20, participated in the experiment and were asked to rate the smells on a "pleasantness score."

According to the findings, the women described about 50 percent of the infected men's smell as 'putrid.' The outcome indicated that like other animals, humans can also use scent to sniff out potential mates.

"We can conclude that unpleasant body odour of infected persons can reduce the probability of a dangerous partnership," the scientists have been quoted by the Web site as saying.