Age-related odor could be identified in armpit-odor study

Body odors in humans is probably the least understood of the human senses currently. It seems likely that odors will play roles in humans not yet conclusively identified. In animals it is known to have very direct roles; such as in mating. The Monell Chemical Senses Center in Philadelphia is one of the leading research labs interested in human odor and it's role in humans.

Under the leadership of Dr Johan Lundstrom of Monell, a new paper has been published on the ability of volunteers to detect the 'age-group' of armpit odor samples (kept in pads) from 3 groups of different ages. Curiously the older group was said to have the least offensive odor.

Daily Mail article on paper : How you can tell a person's age with just one sniff

Full Research Article : The Smell of Age: Perception and Discrimination of Body Odors of Different Ages

Of course it would seem that abnormal offensive malodors that are not normal metabolic constituents of human sweat would always be an exception to the rule in that they will be expected to repulse anyone at any age. However it seems that FMO3 flaws have survived given that they seemingly do no good and cause offence to those who can detect trimethylamine or perhaps other FMO3 unmetabolized malodors.

There has been previous coverage of how a mutation to do with wet or dry earwax may also perhaps be linked with hypohydrosis in armpit sweat in a Far East population that then came to be the main type that Far East Asians are now expected to carry. One hypothesis is that this mutation becoming the dominant type there may be because the lack of ability to have sweaty armpit odor would make the person a more attractive mate.

2009 paper : A strong association of axillary osmidrosis with the wet earwax type determined by genotyping of the ABCC11 gene

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Other links of interest
Preti and Leyden paper 2010 : Genetic Influences on Human Body Odor: From Genes to the Axillae