14 DAY TRIAL // It's a male obsession: finding pheromones that attract females like shit attracts flies.
But does science sustain their hopes? "We still have much to learn about pheromonal communication in humans. However, based on what we do know, human pheromones do not act as sex attractants," says Dr. Charles Wysocki, a behavioral neuroscientist at Monell Chemical Senses Center. "Effects of pheromones on adult human social behavior have never been documented in a controlled peer-reviewed setting."
Pheromones were first identified in insects and are volatile chemicals eliminated in the air by an individual that causes a programmed, unwittingly and rigid response in a second individual of the same species.
Insect pheromones trigger clear activities of attraction and sexual behavior. Bombykol is the first pheromone ever discovered, secreted by the female silkworm moth (Bombyx) to attract potential male mates. "The general term pheromone is often linked to images of specific, rapid response and sexual attraction," notes Dr. George Preti, an organic chemist at the same Monell Chemical Senses Center. "Actually, pheromones are divided into classes that are defined by characteristics of the responses."
Chemicals that trigger immediate behaviors are named releaser pheromones. Releaser pheromones are mating attractants (like bombykol) and danger-signaling alarm pheromones released by many insects and mammals, which provoke defense or attack behavior.
Primer pheromones have sometimes long-term physiological effects on the recipient individuals, provoking maybe shifts in gene expression, resulting in reproductive or developmental changes. One example is found in honey bees, where the queen female produces pheromones that stop ovary development of worker bees.
Another type is the signaler pheromone, which provides information about the individual, like sex or age. Still another type of pheromones - encountered in primates (monkeys) - are named modulators, because they affect a recipient's mood. By analyzing sweat, saliva or urine of several mammalian species, biologists have found the pheromones. At least in rodents, hoofed mammals, monkeys and carnivores.
But no human pheromone has been isolated till now. "To date, no scientifically rigorous study using human secretions has led to the isolation and chemical identification of a true human pheromone", said Preti. But some researches showed pheromonal responses in humans, thus humans might be producing and responding to pheromones.
And their existence in monkeys corroborates this hypothesis. The Monell researchers discovered an unidentified chemical in human male underarm extracts that can produce changes in female reproductive hormone secretion (primer pheromone effect) and mood (modulator pheromone effect).
"Because human responses to pheromones and other chemical signals are influenced by our past experiences, context and other sensory inputs, it is unlikely that pheromones can cause the same type of involuntary attractant response in humans that is seen in the silkworm moth", said Wysocki.