Scientists find that people can literally smell how sick you are

[Buster's Uncle]

Scientists find that people can literally smell how sick you are
BGR.com
By Brad Reed  6 hours ago






If you come down with the flu this winter, don’t be surprised if people avoid you without even thinking about it just from the way you smell. New research published in Psychological Science claims that “humans are able to smell sickness in someone whose immune system is highly active within just a few hours of exposure to a toxin,” which the scientists speculate is a biological mechanism for warning others within your species that you’re sick and that they should keep away from you.

The scientists conducted their experiment by injecting a group of test subjects with lipopolysaccharide, a toxin that typically induces a rapid response from your immune system. The scientists then collected the sweaty shirts from the subjects and paired them with the sweaty shirts from a control group of people who weren’t injected with lipopolysaccharide.

The shirts were then given to a third group of people to smell. On the whole, the shirt-sniffers rated the smell from the “sick” shirts as more foul than the smell from the “healthy” shirts. The scientists have yet to identify the specific chemicals that gave off foul odors but Psychological Science says the finding is important because “it grants us a better understanding of the social cues of sickness, and might also open up doors for understanding how infectious diseases can be contained.”

At any rate, let’s hope that smell-sending smartphones never catch on because otherwise people might be more reluctant to call their sick friends, which would be very sad indeed.


http://news.yahoo.com/scientists-people-literally-smell-sick-204505448.html

[Buster's Uncle]

How the power of smell may be able to detect disease
Relaxnews
20 hours ago






Notice that your partner’s breath smells funny? Or that their body is giving off an unusually unpleasant odor? That may be your nose alerting you to the fact that they’re sick.

According to a new study published out of Sweden, one of the first disease detectors is the human nose, which was shown in their research to pick out toxins even at the early stage of illness.

The research stems from anecdotal evidence of certain diseases carrying specific smells. People with diabetes, for instance, can have breath that smells like rotten apples or acetone.

To put their hypothesis to the test, scientists from the Karolinska Institutet injected eight individuals with either a saline solution, or lipopolysaccharide (LPS), a toxin known to activate the immune response.

The volunteers were then instructed to wear tight T-shirts for four hours, to absorb sweat.

Those injected with LPS experienced elevated body temperatures and increased levels of a group of immune system molecules known as cytokines.

Another group of 40 participants was recruited to smell and evaluate the sweat samples. Overall, T-shirts from the LPS group were rated as more intense and unhealthy (i.e., unpleasant) than the other samples.

It’s a similar concept used by scientists at the University of Huddersfield, who are working on a breathalyzer device that will be able to detect early signs of lung cancer with a breath test. The aim is to catch cancer at the early stages with the help of a simple, non-invasive procedure.

The study was published online in Psychological Science.


http://news.yahoo.com/power-smell-may-able-detect-disease-172541181.html