Men's Sweat Makes Women's Heart Beat Faster, Increases Blood Pressure

Is it possible to be stressed out just by smelling sweat? Not exactly, but there might just be a natural reaction.

According to a study conducted by the University of California Berkeley, there is proof that "just a few whiffs of a chemical found in male sweat is enough to raise levels of cortisol, a hormone commonly associated with alertness or stress."

CNET.com shared that the research was conducted in a total of two trials with 48 undergraduate females at Berkeley, and were asked to "take 20 sniffs from a bottle containing androstadienone, which the researchers say smells vaguely musky. Over a period of two hours, the volunteers provided five saliva samples, from which cortisol levels were determined."

"The control group sniffed a yeast solution, while the other group took a hit of androstadienone. The group exposed to the pheromone reported an improved mood and significantly higher sexual arousal, as well as physiological responses such as changes in blood pressure and heart rate."

The results? ScienfiticAmerican.com says "smelling the androstadienone increased positive mood, total physiological arousal and sexual arousal, which grew with longer exposure. The researchers also found a significant rise in cortisol levels from the sweat component, as compared with the yeast, beginning within 15 minutes of exposure and continuing for up to an hour."

This means that a women is coping with the man's sweat with heart rate rising and sexual arousal.

Claire Wyart, who was part of conducting the study, concludes that in order to get a true accurate result on this idea, they would need to study "other bodily fluids such as urine and blood."

From this research, there is still technically no hard evidence that men's sweat makes women stressed. However, the correlation is quite compelling!

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