Love Changes Sense of Smell
by Gloria Liven

The way someone smells can turn us on or off. It's known that women find some men smell more attractive-- those that tend to have immune systems that complement their own, meaning good genes to mate with.

But did you know that being in love may be able to change a woman's sense of smell?

Johan Lundstrom and Marilyn Jones-Gotman of McGill University had several women in relationships take a "passionate love scale" test of how in love they were.

The women's friends and boyfriends slept in a shirt for a week, avoiding smelly foods like garlic, spicy food, and asparagus.

Then, the women were asked to smell the garments and try to distinguish which ones belonged to their boyfriend, friend, or strangers.
.

All the women were able to tell their lover's shirt by his smell. They were asked to rate how confident they were that they chose their boyfriend's corectly; the average was 5.2 out of 7.
But the women who scored as more deeply in love were much worse at distinguishing their male friends from strangers. In fact, the three women who scored as the highest in love couldn't identify any of their male friends by smell.

The implications may be that when you're deeply in love, your brain makes other people seem less attractive and you ignore other potential mates. This is perhaps nature's way of ensuring we stay in love or don't find others attractive and cheat.

External Links:
NewScientist: Love Skews your Sense of Smell
Discover: "True Love" May Change a Woman's Sense of Smell

New funny picture site: StuffOnMyRack.com