Age Can Be Revealed By Body Odour

It's true: Old people smell. But not in an offensive way, according to a study that has found humans can identify another person's age group purely by getting a whiff of their body odour. Although considered an offensive smell to be masked with deodorants and perfume, body odour is thought to send out an array of messages that people receive on an unconscious level.

Body odour from older people was rated as less intense and more pleasant than the younger age groups (Source: Bela Tibor Kozma/iStockphoto)

"Signals in body odour can help us identify kin from non-kin, choose a suitable partner and also determine age," says Assistant Professor Johan Lundström, an experimental neuropsychologist at the Monell Chemical Sciences Centre in the United States, and senior author of the paper published today in PLoS One.

It is widely believed that body odour changes as people get older. Previous studies found that rats could identify different ages based on smell and researchers wanted to see if humans also have this ability.

In the study, scientists gathered data from three age groups - young (20 to 30 years), middle-age (45 to 55 years) and old-age (75 to 95 years). The participants slept in t-shirts with pads located under the armpits. After five nights the armpit pads were removed and placed in jars. Other participants were then asked to rate the scent and group the jars according to age