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Are Human Pheromones Effective?

By: Roy Kostka Pheromones are natural scents that affects most animals or insects in such a way that it triggers a natural response. This behavioral response is most noticeable in the animal kingdom but there have been recent studies that have also shown that humans react to pheromones much like animals do.

Actually, pheromones are not only focused as a sexual stimulus for animals. The chemical substances may also serve as an indication for danger, trail or territorial marking and others. Pheromones are usually sensed through smell which is why many researchers doubt the accuracy of the use of these chemical substances in humans initially.

How Effective Pheromones Are?

The efficacy of pheromones in humans has been debated since we do not have a highly developed sense of smell like animals. Many scientists studied the effect of human pheromones in people and it has been proven that people produce these chemical substances and that these are also produced in the same way as in animals. The question is how they really work.

A positive study regarding the effect of odor cues through a closely studied group of women that had something to do with their menstrual cycle was conducted. The study had the women in the group interact with each other for some time and the study illustrated that the menstrual cycle of the women in the group soon coordinated with each other. Researchers have concluded that this physical coordination has something to do with pheromones or odor cues that the women unconsciously emit before, during and after their menstrual periods.

The coordination of the women's menstrual cycle due to their close interaction of each other has proven that the odor cues that we produce affect other individuals. Close interaction of women in a group affects their menstrual cycles even without their knowledge of pheromones.

Another study regarding the effect of odor cues or human pheromones on the opposite sex suggested that individual people use these odor cues to select partners who are not closely related to themselves. The odor cues of the chemical substance that we produce and emit were observed from this study had something to do with the immune system of each individual being observed. This study is about disassortative sexual selection. Even with homosexual and heterosexual males, there is a different reaction and it seems that both heterosexual females and homosexual males react similarly to pheromones emitted by a heterosexual male.

This study proves that self awareness has something to do with odor cues since biologically males and females are different. Since homosexual males are attracted to heterosexual, males who have stronger pheromone emissions, then it goes to show that sexual preferences play a role in scent cues as well.

Do Pheromones Cause Sexual Attraction?

These chemical scents work not only as a link between the mother and infant and not only as a territorial maker but primarily to perpetuate the species. In animals, these substances signal the fertility of a female or fitness of a male individual and the readiness to procreate. In humans, pheromones have pretty much the same effect. It seems that our bodies are attuned to the subtle scents and without our knowledge we are attracted to a certain individual because of it.

This basic knowledge of the effects of scent cues has prompted many fragrances laced with these pheromone chemical substances to attract partners of the opposite sex. The effect of such a fragrance has been favorable and has indeed proven that there is such a thing as a pheromone induced attraction.