Women Have Reduced Ability to Discriminate Body Odors During the Withdrawal Period of Oral Contraception
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Women Have Reduced Ability to Discriminate Body Odors During the Withdrawal Period of Oral Contraception Yaara Endevelt–Shapira 1 & Liron Pinchover 1 & Ofer Perl 1 & Ella Bar 1 & Ayelet Avin 1 & Noam Sobel 1 Received: 6 December 2018 / Accepted: 24 October 2019 # The Author(s) 2019
Abstract Introduction Women’s olfactory perception varies across the menstrual cycle. The influence of oral contraceptives on this variability remains unclear. Methods To further estimate this, we assessed discrimination performance for both body odors and ordinary odorants in 36 women, 18 naturally ovulating, and 18 using oral contraceptives. Each participant was tested once a week over the course of a month, and data was then parsed into menstrual phases. Results In naturally ovulating women, at the transition from follicular to luteal phases, there was a decline of 19% (p = 0.003) in olfactory discrimination of body odors but not ordinary odorants. In turn, in women using oral contraceptives, only at a later time of the month, at a point corresponding to the late luteal phase and shift from post-ovulation to pre-menstruation, was there a decline of 20% (p = 0.002) in olfactory discrimination performance. Moreover, when we reorganized the data from women using oral contraceptives in order to separately assess the contraceptive withdrawal period (the few days off pills), we observed a 23% reduction (p = 0.01) in discrimination accuracy of body odors but not ordinary odorants during this time alone. Conclusions Women have reduced ability to discriminate body odors during the withdrawal period of oral contraception. Implications If women indeed consider men’s body odor in their mate selections, then the oral contraception withdrawal period may not be the best time to make such decisions. Keywords Olfaction . menstrual cycle . body odor . oral contraception
Introduction Olfactory sensitivity and perception in women vary across the menstrual cycle (Doty and Cameron 2009a). Most reports imply high sensitivity during the follicular pre* Yaara Endevelt–Shapira [email protected] * Noam Sobel [email protected] Liron Pinchover [email protected] Ofer Perl [email protected] Ella Bar [email protected] Ayelet Avin [email protected] 1
Department of Neurobiology, Weizmann Institute of Science, 76100 Rehovot, Israel
ovulation and ovulation phases compared with the luteal and menstruation phases (Navarrete-Palacios et al. 2003; Vierling and Rock 1967). Further indications suggest this link between menstrual phase and perception is odor-type dependent (Doty and Cameron 2009a; Lundstrom et al. 2006; Mair et al. 1978). Although this variability is likely linked to cycling hormones (Caruso et al. 2001; Renfro and Hoffmann 2013), the specifics of the mechanism underlying this variation remain unclear. In women using oral contraceptives (OC), the natural hormonal cycle is pharmacologically altered, and this could potentially provide insight into the role of cycling hormones in olfactory perception. To date,
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