Smelling other people's body odors may be useful in therapy for social anxiety, according to Swedish researchers who have begun tests with volunteers.
Scientists used armpit sweat in experiments.
Their hunch is that smell activates brain pathways associated with emotion, leading to a calming effect - but it's too early to tell if they're right.
Some of the early findings will be presented at medical conference in Paris.
- Why people who are not in a relationship smell different
- What all the heat can do to the human body
- Why does the rain smell so good
Why and how do we smell?
Babies are born with a strong sense of smell, they especially smell the mother and her milk.
Smell helps us detect danger - from food to smoke.
It helps us to communicate with the environment, but also with each other.
The dishes are tastier and evoke strong memories.
The aroma is detected by receptors in the upper part of the nose.
The signals are then sent directly to a certain part of the brain that is associated with memories and emotions.
Swedish research suggests that human body odor could convey our emotional state - whether we're happy or upset, and even trigger similar responses in others who smell it.
They asked volunteers to donate sweat from their armpits when they watched a scary or happy movie.
Forty-eight women with social anxiety agreed to sniff some of these samples while receiving a more conventional therapy called mindfulness.
This means that people are encouraged to focus on the present rather than repeating negative thoughts.
Some of the women were given real body odor to sniff, while others, the control group, smelled clean air.
Those exposed to sweat seemed to do better with the therapy.
"Sweat produced when someone was happy had the same effect as someone who was scared by a movie - maybe there's something about the human chemosignals in sweat that affects the response to treatment in general."
"Maybe exposure to something else has a similar effect, but we have to confirm that." This is what we will test in the next study with a similar design, but where we also included the sweat of individuals watching emotionally neutral documentaries," explained Elisa Vigna, from the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm and the lead researcher of the project.
What is sweat and does it always have a smell?
Sweat generally does not smell.
But the sweat glands in the armpits and groin produce certain compounds that cause body odor.
Bacteria on the surface of the skin and in nearby hair follicles break down these compounds, producing others that are responsible for the smell.
"We know that there is a strong connection between our sense of smell and our emotional well-being.
"Losing the ability to smell other people, such as your partner and children, can cause depression and feelings of isolation.
"While this is a preliminary study and of course further work is needed, it is very encouraging to see further research into how important our sense of smell is to good mental health," said Duncan Boak of the charity Fifth Senses, which aims to to raise awareness of smell and taste disorders.
Follow us on Facebook,Twitter i Viber. If you have a topic proposal for us, contact us at bbcnasrpskom@bbc.co.uk
Bonus video:
