Women may be able to detect STDs in a potential partner through his natural odour, new Russian research has revealed.
Scientists from the Institute of Cytology and Genetics in Russia discovered that gonorrhoea-infected men were more likely to smell "putrid" to a group of young ladies than healthy men, MSNBC reported.
"Our research revealed that infectious disease reduces odour attractiveness in humans," lead author Professor Mikhail Moshkin wrote in the Journal of Sexual Medicine.
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The researchers had previously observed that rats and mice were not attracted to the scent of mates infected with disease and wanted to see if the same was true of humans.
They invited 34 Russian young men — 13 with gonorrhea, five who had been successfully cured of the infection and 16 who were healthy — to donate samples of armpit sweat.
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These samples were then given to 18 female university students to sniff and rate them on their "pleasantness" score.
The women ranked the infected men less than half as high as "pleasant" as the healthy men and when asked to characterise the scent, the woman said that nearly 50 percent of the infected men's sweat smelled "putrid."
However, they also rated 30 percent of sweat from healthy men and less than 40 percent of the sweat from the treated men as putrid.
The researchers concluded that humans may use scent to weed out unsuitable partners.
"We can conclude that unpleasant body odour of infected persons can reduce the probability of a dangerous partnership," the scientists said.
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