Women Have Reduced Ability to Discriminate Body Odors During the Withdrawal Period of Oral Contraception,Chemosensory Perception

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Women Have Reduced Ability to Discriminate Body Odors During the Withdrawal Period of Oral Contraception
Chemosensory Perception Pub Date : 2019-12-06 , DOI: 10.1007/s12078-019-09273-9
Yaara Endevelt-Shapira ₁ , Liron Pinchover ₁ , Ofer Perl ₁ , Ella Bar ₁ , Ayelet Avin ₁ , Noam Sobel ₁

Affiliation

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.

中文翻译：

女性在口服避孕药停药期间辨别体味的能力下降

介绍

女性的嗅觉在月经周期中会有所不同。口服避孕药对这种变异性的影响尚不清楚。

方法

为了进一步估计这一点，我们评估了 36 名女性（其中 18 名自然排卵，18 名使用口服避孕药）对体味和普通气味的辨别表现。每个参与者在一个月内每周接受一次测试，然后将数据解析为月经阶段。

结果

在自然排卵的女性中，从卵泡期过渡到黄体期时，对体味的嗅觉辨别力下降了 19% ( p = 0.003)，但对普通气味的嗅觉辨别能力却没有下降。反过来，对于使用口服避孕药的女性，只有在每月的晚些时候，也就是黄体期晚期和从排卵后到月经前的转变的时间点，才会出现 20% 的下降 ( p = 0.002)在嗅觉辨别表现上。此外，当我们重新整理使用口服避孕药的女性的数据以单独评估避孕药戒断期（停药几天）时，我们观察到体味而非普通气味的辨别准确度下降了 23% ( p = 0.01)独自一人的这段时间。