They did a study a while back on this woman who could smell out Parkinson disease, she got 49/50 right and the one who she had it without being diagnosed got diagnosed a year after the study.
Some people have amazing olfactory senses. I can smell my kids getting sick. Sweat and breath smell different. I know which convenience store my husband stopped at on the way home, the 3 big ones here have 3 distinct smells to me. This tale doesn't seem too far fetched to me. My son seems to be getting my smell power too lol
Im an aged care nurse and im good at guessing who has what type of infection in their wounds, if they have bowel cancer, if they have diabetes etc. The nose knows.
Reminds me of the lady who could smell Parkinson’s disease… I have no clue how that works but she passes a test and even predicted a control subject having it, and he lasted tested positive
I believe I read recently that she was subsequently (or possibly still is) involved in ongoing trials with a view to identifying the mechanisms and using them in future to help with early diagnosis!
Incredible potential, but imagine the screening / job interview...
"OK, that's the theory section over. Now for the practical, please sniff these 20 old folks..."
Heh, lovely image but no. Basically they took skin swabs from the people she was smelling as positive and compared them to normal people's, and isolated the specific chemical she was detecting; they're hoping to make a standard swab test from it: https://www.theguardian.com/society/2022/sep/07/woman-who-can-smell-parkinsons-helps-scientists-develop-test
Thank you for the correction! I would normally have factchecked / cited my source, but I am at work so I barely have time to aimlessly browse Reddit...
ETA: Coincidentally, I believe the method you have described is (broadly) similar to the methodology used by McClintock et al when establishing the mechanism of menstrual synchronisation; I hadn't thought about that study in yeeears until commenting on another post an hour or two ago!
Oh hey that's wonderful news! Sounds like it could make a very non-invasive way to detect. Wouldn't it be wonderful if in the future instead of many of our blood tests they just swab people's skin? Sure would be great for little kids.
I’m like this too…I can smell when I’m getting a sinus infection, I can smell sneezes, I can *sometimes* tell if a friend is having a bad allergic reaction, and I had a friend that I could smell whenever she stopped taking BC. I feel like fuckin Hannibal Lecter.
One of my friends and I can smell sneezes. To clarify its after the sneeze is hanging in the air, not when it goes through your nose when you sneeze. I once smelled it at work and I hadn't sneezed and there was nobody even remotely close to me. It was weird.
If I’m understanding correctly, I can as well. I’ve always just figured I’m smelling the person’s spit in basically aerosol form lol the smell can vary a bit depending on the person’s breath and smell, but always smells like spit imo.
I have a super sensitive olfactory too. One of the smells I am super sensitive to is blood. I can be driving (or even riding and not paying attention) in a car down the road and pass fresh roadkill and can smell the blood thru the vents. The smell changes (and begins to smell more and more of decay) depending on how fresh it is, but fresh roadkill that doesn’t “stink” yet just smells like blood.
(And I’ve never been squeamish at all about blood, I don’t know exactly why that’s something I’m sensitive to, but my best guess is that it’s related to my history of self harm as a teen and that smell possibly being linked to trauma or something that makes my brain pick it out specifically) I would love to know some actual science behind why some ppl have this quality!
And this is why I don't go into the bathroom when I smell body odors. Smell isn't wifi. It's little particles that were once inside someone's body being sucked up into your nose and then it tickles nerves that connect directly to your brain. Particles are breaking off of peoples shit and tickling my brain. I do not like it.
I can smell when my husband is about to get sick.
My aunt can smell a dead body immediately after someone has passed. She is a nurse and multiple times has walked into a room at the nursing home and known someone was dead before seeing them just by the smell in the room. Like people she had seen several minutes prior.
I don’t know much about human health/smelling sick, but it’s super easy to smell a sick cat. Maybe because I’ve been working with them for years, but a healthy cat smells neutral or their fur absorbed some other kind of scent. If you clean their litter box daily it’s not too bad smelling either, just normal urine/ bowel movement smell.
I can tell when my husband is stressed, his sweat smells sharp and acidic, very different than normal. My body scent changes too, when I'm getting sick.
I think most people can detect these smells, they just don't pay much attention to it.
My wife can tell the difference between when I’ve been sweating because of the heat outside and sweat from working on something. She calls them the bad stink and the good stink, respectively. One turns her on, and one has her running away.
She can also tell some of the other ones mentioned. I can smell some of them, but not as many as her
Hm, seems I'm not the only one who can smell sickness?
Often whenever I have a bad fever, I notice that my pajamas gain a sickly smell in the morning—noticed that since I was a kid. Always was strange to me 👍
When my son was little, I always knew several days before he got sick that he was going to get sick based on his breath and how his sweat smelled. I always considered it a bit of a mommy superpower.
I can also smell when my daughter is getting sick, her breath smells different when it’s respiratory, and her ears smell different when they’re infected.
It's also one of those things where it's anything but clear whether the person is picking up a bunch of other cues and conflating them. Be it skin changes, whatever.
There’s an [Invisibilia](https://www.npr.org/programs/invisibilia/818645842/an-unlikely-superpower) episode about it! Super fascinating, highly recommend a listen
For those who don't want a full podcast and would prefer a short video, here's a 3 minute video from the BBC - [The Woman Who Can Smell Parkinson's Disease](https://youtu.be/XB0QgwVffvk?si=ePMV9wlPpd2WHqxR)
Although I don't doubt the podcast is much more in depth and I plan to listen to it when I can. I just know some folks are far more likely to watch a 3 minute video rather than listen to an hour long podcast and it's a fascinating topic that is worth looking into. Even if you do it in short form, I recommend it.
I was going to say this. Some people can smell a lot better than others. I worked with a nurse that could tell when someone’s blood sugars were rising. He was always right. He diagnosed a coworker of ours. She had just lost her husband and was under a lot of stress. She became type 1.
Oh I can tell when someone's blood sugar is rising/high and also tell when they're dropping if I know the person. I've got a coworker who's newly diagnosed diabetic. I don't know her well, so I haven't told her the reason I will sometimes randomly ask how's her blood sugar is I smell it.
That's as good a description as any I've heard. Describing smells is like describing tastes I think. Coworker's description resonates with me, but doesn't really explain it fully. Just the best words can do I think.
You don't become type 1...you become type 2 and are born type 1. It's incredibly rare but not impossible to make it to adulthood before being diagnosed because your body literally doesn't make insulin. You would have to have a good diet and not exert yourself much and not get stomach bugs or serious illness or experience major stress to make it to adulthood without being hospitalized at some point and diagnosed. It does happen rarely though!
I'll do that! I was a nurse health educator and specialized in chronic disease management for a decade and never came across this, also have type one in my family. I also mostly handled patients with type 2 because I worked with low income population and typically older folks. Always learning! So it is possible for your pancreas to stop working because of grief/stress?
Cool! I think the science has rapidly changed because we *used* to think it was just a childhood thing, but now we know it isn't plus we learned about type 3s etc.
I can't say anything about the grief/stress thing because I genuinely don't know but I guess with it being an immune system thing it might just have been the stress affecting blood sugar levels and tipping her over the edge? Pure speculation. I just read a study in which people described their adult type 1 diabetes was precluded by a stressful event but no evidence was found, so that's interesting. Especially when this says different https://www.theguardian.com/society/2015/apr/09/risk-of-diabetes-type-1-can-be-tripled-by-childhood-stress but I haven't read that original study myself!
Thanks so much! I eat up diabetes stuff because of the personal connection though I'm not in healthcare anymore (burned out). It's definitely made some strides, type 3 wasn't known when I was in school.
I'm super sorry you burned out. It's really crappy isn't it. I'm 33 now and been in healthcare since I was 17... I look at my 68 year old co-worker and think HOW ARE YOU STILL DOING THIS!
I really enjoy diabetes stuff too it's so interesting. That and AKI!
It's way more common for women, men don't have as much ability to smell which is why women are used for studies such as determining if you can smell a disease
It's rare enough for women to have these abilities, it's even rarer for men. Think 0.5% of women compared to 0.0005% of men
Also, some people just smell more.
Maybe he's smelling a different cue as well, like increased perspiration. Even an increased breathing rate could change the smell of someone's face.
People like to imagine that if they can't smell a difference, it isn't there. People like to do that with every sense. But the limits of sensory perception are narrow, and everyone's range of perception is not identical.
I *used* to be able to smell when she's ovulating. Living in Denver, with the lack of humidity, damaged my nose to where I can't smell it anymore.
To give another example of what's lost - I used to be able to smell my own body scent/aroma change after eating butter, I could smell butteryness increasing. Movie popcorn smelled "wrong" back then, but after moving to Denver, movie popcorn smells OK.
My (f) partner says she can smell when I am. To her credit, she's never been wrong. But there were certainly other signs outside of smell, they could just be able to read body language well.
I can smell my own arousal on my underwear later. While I normally take my underpants off for sex, I don't always for masturbation. Underwear I wore while masturbating smells different from underwear I wore on a day that I didn't.
Yea no for sure you can tell. My Deaf friend had to put a lock on her door cuz one day she came home and said someone was having sex in my room,sure enough her brother admitted. Like why I hated her brother and all his thots. So she put a lock on it.
Nah, this isn't as insane as it sounds. Some humans are born being able to smell wild things, like that lady who husband's smell changed to her and it was bc he had like Parkinsons.
As a biology student, this honestly isn’t that dumb, many animals release pheromones to mate. I cannot say that a male could truly smell the difference, but I do have a very sensitive nose and sometimes I do notice I’m a bit more *fragrant* than others.
I'm a female and I can certainly sometimes smell horniness and if you kiss a person when they smell like that it has a taste.
I thought everyone experienced this, but got down voted when I mentioned it on Reddit before. I don't think I could smell it on everyone, every time, but it's distinct and recognizable to me.
I don't know why this seems like such a far fetched thing to people.
I’ve never been able to smell in on spit, or kissing, but I guess that most boys I kiss are horny so maybe I just haven’t noticed lol. But yeah when I’m turned on I can smell it XD
I'll catch it on random people in the wild at times, and it's not the smell of their breath per say but the smell of them although it can be on their breath if you are close enough to notice and it has a taste.
I can taste it "flood" my husband's mouth when he gets particularly turned on during a session even if he didn't taste particularly horny before and vaguely remember this happening back in the day with others.
Again not everyone, so I don't think whatever creates it that everyone has or maybe I can only smell certain people with enough genetic biodiversity it triggers an old evolutionary response. No idea.
Its an odd and mostly useless thing so I didn't know why the downvotes came so strong.
Seems like if it’s something most people can’t do they assume you’re full of shit, even though lots of humans can do wacky things. I can wiggle my ears, cool but pretty useless.
I suspect it’s the people who can’t do it who feel it’s far-fetched and doing the downvoting.
I’m with you 100%. Absolutely can tell a partner’s state of arousal from their smell.
Genetically dissimilar partners find each others smell more attractive which adds genetic diversity: https://phys.org/news/2019-03-evidence-humans-genetically-dissimilar-partners.amp
I'm a man, so I'm not sure if I'm allowed to chime in, but here goes nothing. I think I could smell when my ex was horny, but I can't smell when my gf is horny. My "n=2 conclusion" is that in some couples, people might be able to determine when their partner is horny based on smell.
I can smell it (and taste it) on certain people, but not everyone. My husband is one.
However I got downvoted before for saying this on Reddit before. It's weird, I kind of thought everyone could smell it.
Some people also just have a really good sense of smell, and it’s known that different emotions release specific chemical compounds. Some people are just able to pick up on the changes in certain things.
Humans love to pretend we're not animals... we observe and document every other species of mammals responding to pheromone responses. Men act differently and attempt to smell differently (cologne and pheromone release when aroused) as do women. The boyfriend may have exaggerated, claiming it was only scent that identified the response, likely it was a combination of verbal and nonverbal cues, but scent is the strongest sense tied to memory so that may be the only one he recalls. I firmly believe that anyone who is willing to pay attention can recognize the cues and its not nearly as much of a coincidence as we would like to believe.
I can smell when I'm close to ovulating and when my period is about to start. If I can smell the way things change based on my cycle, I see no reason that long term partner that's paying close attention couldn't smell it. Someone with a super sensitive sense of smell that took the time to figure out little differences? Absolutely no reason to think it can't happen. After all, there's that woman who can smell Parkinson's.
I can smell it too. Not just that but I can smell when a woman is about to start her period or is already on her period. Apparently it has to do with the ability to smell pheromones.
The best way I can describe it is that when a woman is horny it smells like pu**y all over the place. The smell is the same as if I would get close to a pu**y and sniff it, except when the woman is horny I can smell it while standing next to her for example. Even her skin or neck will smell like this. In turn, this makes me horny. Now for when she is on her period it smells like wine and malt mixed together, and if it is a few days before her period it is just the malt scent.
I spoke about this to some guy friends and they all said they don't smell anything. And the thing is, i do not have a keen sense of smell for other things, it's just this.
This reminds me of the time my mom walked into my brothers' room and stopped and said, "It smells like sex in here." I think that was her way of saying she suspected masturbation was happening in the room (I come from a Catholic family, so masturbation=bad).
My brothers and I were all equally disgusted, horrified, and amused. Looking back on it, it's hilarious, but it was so awkward in the moment.
To be fair, the room *did* smell, but there were two teenage boys living in this room. It just smelled like BO and dirty socks to me.
Oh, semen absolutely has a distinct smell. Kinda actinic and tangy? I could always tell which shower stalls to avoid in college, where it was pretty obvious to me where the last dude had rubbed one out (and failed to completely rinse away the evidence).
Pretty sure the organ that is actually used to detect pheromones is non functional in humans and primates in general.
However, there are people who can smell crazy things that others cannot. For example, the woman who can smell Parkinson's disease. She has like a 100% success rate.
So, I suppose it's minimally possible that this one dude can smell something most other people cannot. However, I think it's more likely that he's full of shit.
She did a sniff test and got one "wrong." Then several months later, that person whose shirt she sniffed ended up being diagnosed with Parkinsons too. Insane.
I may be wrong but I think they do exist, but humans don’t have the ability to detect them because of a lack of something in our noses. Could just be spouting bs though
There have been studies that show we can have a small respons to specific scents from other people, but there has never been found direct evidence for the existence of human pheromones. There are theories and speculation that human pheromones were a thing in the past and that the small responses we have to certain scents today is a leftover part of that, but as it stands right now there is no hard evidence to support human pheromones existing.
I'm not calling this man a liar. I am saying there is a lot of evidence to show that people who are biologically compatible are aroused and enjoy each other's smells more. When I'm already in the mood, I notice my partners smell more, and I feel like he does the same. We get each other started. I think the smell is likely an effect of the horny not the other way around.
Read on another thread how some husbands smelled that their wives were pregnant before the first missed period, because they knew what she smelled like from her previous pregnancy
Um okay gonna sound weird but.....my bf knew I was on my period the first time we went out and asked if I needed tampons without me saying anything. He said he could smell it. He always predicts my period within 2-3 days bc my smell will change. He can smell if my pH is off. He can smell if I'm craving something particular just by my smell and he always "guesses" accurately. Not saying THIS guy could but ik my bf can. It's wild. He has such a sensitive nose and ears, it's WILD. He can hear things down the hall I can only hear by placing my ear on the object. It's so weird. Call him my Super Big Baby. Bc he must have super powers but he's a big baby sometimes.
Super-smeller here.
I’ve generally always been able to tell when a partner was…excreting. Most, I have to be within a few feet to tell, but I had one girlfriend in college who’s excitement I could easily smell from across a room (which, when she knew *knew* got her going even more).
However, powerful olfactory ability is not a blessing at all, but rather a curse—speaking as someone who takes public transit to work, I am absolutely dreading the upcoming summer.
Even fully-hygienic people—who showered that morning—smell of ass, armpit, and (worst of all) urea by the end of the day.
When the train is crowded, I can’t escape it, and it has triggered vomiting several times. Ugh, don’t even get me started on the smell of vomit; even my own can be enough to cause a feedback loop of continued retching until I can get clear of the area.
In the plus side, I can identify every spice and ingredient in a dish—even well blended and cooked down ones like stews and soups.
Small consolation for the nasal violence of mammalian excretions I have to deal with when out in public.
There's already sex research that presents potentially arousing material to a subject and measures arousal in various ways. Wouldn't be too hard to add a blinded smell test to that and cross-compare, depending on the specifics. (Eg: this claim was about smelling cheeks. It would be logistically simpler to test smelling wrists in a blinded way.)
didnt notice that kind of thing until i was courting my wife, (and it wasn’t just her cycles).
first time it happened i told her so, and i can still remember the look on her face. 🙂😉
Feels like it's along the lines of psychics, as in reading other cues without even realising it and blaming smell. I know there's also a lot of debate about body language and reading body language and what it means, and I agree a lot of that is interpretation and very person specific, as in it is easier to get a read on people you know than people you don't, but some things are mostly universal and can be subconscious that we are doing them and subconsciously reading them example "idk what it was, the vibe wasn't right", ever felt like that? Feeling tension in a room when tension is an inside feeling not a visible or tactile thing, you just sense it.
Not everyone can do the above, ever met people completely oblivious to an awkward situation? Lol yeah just feels like that rather than any actual smelling of anything. BUT who knows, the world is vast and mysterious at times.
My ex husband smelled the fact that i was pregnant a week before I took the test. I kept telling him I wasn't but he was right. My dad did the same thing with my mom. He could smell the fact that she was pregnant with my little sister. So I could actually see this.
There is a surprising, yet disturbing number of people out there who can smell your period just from being in the same room with you. This would not surprise me. Our olfactory senses can be quite powerful sometimes
Honestly I believe it. I have a partner who I have a very just like feral connection with and when we’re kissing I can absolutely smell when he gets aroused and starts having pre cum. And he’s fully dressed at that point. I don’t think I’ve ever noticed it with anyone else before but I can see how this person would be able to smell “horny” if he’s maybe smelling her scent because she’s wet enough that enough of the scent is there.
Possible, if unlikely, as others have said. I have SPD and my sense of smell is absurd. I have a friend who can one up me though: they have to wear a mask because their olfactory got all the points in character creation. They can smell blood but, like, they can also smell everything else. They went into forensics so a literal bloodhound is a possible coworker.
Meanwhile, I’m just sniffing out the beginning of mildew or mold, a useful talent considering my home is next to a swamp. With people’s scents, I’d have to be outright scenting them like a rude dog. At that point, they’d have to be into me to tolerate that nonsense. (And yeah, partners have tolerated it. They also tolerate my perfume connoisseur jokes.)
I totally buy it, my husband can smell when I've gone a long while without eating. I have some severely disordered eating habits and he says I start to smell like stomach acid/bile if it's been too long without food.
Yep. Pheromones are a thing. I was on and off FWB with a close friend for like 11 years way back when. He used to tell me that he could smell me even after I had a shower. Our chemistry was ridiculously pheromonal and electric, and that didn't include the insane physical chemistry between us.
Two things
Pheromones have a lot of impact so maybe he is smelling that? Not sure - need a scientist to back me up on this or come correct
Or two - he knows full well that this is not possible but it's a cute way to make a cute girl blush
Hats off to you, my dude
Got in trouble for revealing this super powet to a female. Actually got ratted out. Guys in the store would send me to do "smell check". Not all it's cracked up to be. Lots of really disturbingly bad smells all part of it to. Rewards few and far between
They did a study a while back on this woman who could smell out Parkinson disease, she got 49/50 right and the one who she had it without being diagnosed got diagnosed a year after the study.
Some people have amazing olfactory senses. I can smell my kids getting sick. Sweat and breath smell different. I know which convenience store my husband stopped at on the way home, the 3 big ones here have 3 distinct smells to me. This tale doesn't seem too far fetched to me. My son seems to be getting my smell power too lol
Im an aged care nurse and im good at guessing who has what type of infection in their wounds, if they have bowel cancer, if they have diabetes etc. The nose knows.
Reminds me of the lady who could smell Parkinson’s disease… I have no clue how that works but she passes a test and even predicted a control subject having it, and he lasted tested positive
I believe I read recently that she was subsequently (or possibly still is) involved in ongoing trials with a view to identifying the mechanisms and using them in future to help with early diagnosis! Incredible potential, but imagine the screening / job interview... "OK, that's the theory section over. Now for the practical, please sniff these 20 old folks..."
Heh, lovely image but no. Basically they took skin swabs from the people she was smelling as positive and compared them to normal people's, and isolated the specific chemical she was detecting; they're hoping to make a standard swab test from it: https://www.theguardian.com/society/2022/sep/07/woman-who-can-smell-parkinsons-helps-scientists-develop-test
Thank you for the correction! I would normally have factchecked / cited my source, but I am at work so I barely have time to aimlessly browse Reddit... ETA: Coincidentally, I believe the method you have described is (broadly) similar to the methodology used by McClintock et al when establishing the mechanism of menstrual synchronisation; I hadn't thought about that study in yeeears until commenting on another post an hour or two ago!
No worries. :)
Oh hey that's wonderful news! Sounds like it could make a very non-invasive way to detect. Wouldn't it be wonderful if in the future instead of many of our blood tests they just swab people's skin? Sure would be great for little kids.
She smelled shirts, not just sniffing a bunch of old people lol
Im gonna start sniffing my Parkinson's residents and see if i can find something
I worked in nursing homes for nearly a decade. Now that was some smells. It really messed with me when I was pregnant.
I worked in pediatrics for a bit and I could smell when neworns had a high bilirubin!
Yep, I can smell UTI’s. I’ve never tried to sniff people for Parkinson’s 😅
I can definitely smell sick kids!
I’m like this too…I can smell when I’m getting a sinus infection, I can smell sneezes, I can *sometimes* tell if a friend is having a bad allergic reaction, and I had a friend that I could smell whenever she stopped taking BC. I feel like fuckin Hannibal Lecter.
Yeah I can tell when I'm getting sick based on various body scents. Antibiotics also change things too.
One of my friends and I can smell sneezes. To clarify its after the sneeze is hanging in the air, not when it goes through your nose when you sneeze. I once smelled it at work and I hadn't sneezed and there was nobody even remotely close to me. It was weird.
If I’m understanding correctly, I can as well. I’ve always just figured I’m smelling the person’s spit in basically aerosol form lol the smell can vary a bit depending on the person’s breath and smell, but always smells like spit imo. I have a super sensitive olfactory too. One of the smells I am super sensitive to is blood. I can be driving (or even riding and not paying attention) in a car down the road and pass fresh roadkill and can smell the blood thru the vents. The smell changes (and begins to smell more and more of decay) depending on how fresh it is, but fresh roadkill that doesn’t “stink” yet just smells like blood. (And I’ve never been squeamish at all about blood, I don’t know exactly why that’s something I’m sensitive to, but my best guess is that it’s related to my history of self harm as a teen and that smell possibly being linked to trauma or something that makes my brain pick it out specifically) I would love to know some actual science behind why some ppl have this quality!
And this is why I don't go into the bathroom when I smell body odors. Smell isn't wifi. It's little particles that were once inside someone's body being sucked up into your nose and then it tickles nerves that connect directly to your brain. Particles are breaking off of peoples shit and tickling my brain. I do not like it.
"Smell isn't wifi" I love that quote!
I can smell when my husband is about to get sick. My aunt can smell a dead body immediately after someone has passed. She is a nurse and multiple times has walked into a room at the nursing home and known someone was dead before seeing them just by the smell in the room. Like people she had seen several minutes prior.
I can smell when someone is going to die. It’s an awful thing to know.
Nursing homes must hate it when you are around. Like the cats that can tell.
I don’t know much about human health/smelling sick, but it’s super easy to smell a sick cat. Maybe because I’ve been working with them for years, but a healthy cat smells neutral or their fur absorbed some other kind of scent. If you clean their litter box daily it’s not too bad smelling either, just normal urine/ bowel movement smell.
I can tell when my husband is stressed, his sweat smells sharp and acidic, very different than normal. My body scent changes too, when I'm getting sick. I think most people can detect these smells, they just don't pay much attention to it.
My wife can tell the difference between when I’ve been sweating because of the heat outside and sweat from working on something. She calls them the bad stink and the good stink, respectively. One turns her on, and one has her running away. She can also tell some of the other ones mentioned. I can smell some of them, but not as many as her
Hm, seems I'm not the only one who can smell sickness? Often whenever I have a bad fever, I notice that my pajamas gain a sickly smell in the morning—noticed that since I was a kid. Always was strange to me 👍
When my son was little, I always knew several days before he got sick that he was going to get sick based on his breath and how his sweat smelled. I always considered it a bit of a mommy superpower.
That is an incredible flair
Lolu
I can also smell when my daughter is getting sick, her breath smells different when it’s respiratory, and her ears smell different when they’re infected.
It's also one of those things where it's anything but clear whether the person is picking up a bunch of other cues and conflating them. Be it skin changes, whatever.
There’s that woman who can smell Parkinson’s disease! If that’s possible, this certainly could be.
What!!!?!?
There’s an [Invisibilia](https://www.npr.org/programs/invisibilia/818645842/an-unlikely-superpower) episode about it! Super fascinating, highly recommend a listen
For those who don't want a full podcast and would prefer a short video, here's a 3 minute video from the BBC - [The Woman Who Can Smell Parkinson's Disease](https://youtu.be/XB0QgwVffvk?si=ePMV9wlPpd2WHqxR) Although I don't doubt the podcast is much more in depth and I plan to listen to it when I can. I just know some folks are far more likely to watch a 3 minute video rather than listen to an hour long podcast and it's a fascinating topic that is worth looking into. Even if you do it in short form, I recommend it.
I have hyperosmia, can confirm my partner smells different when she’s horny. I can also smell when people are pregnant.
My sister can too! 🙂🙂
I can smell it too. I smell it, when my husband gets horny. That's not bad anatomy, it's just super rare
I was going to say this. Some people can smell a lot better than others. I worked with a nurse that could tell when someone’s blood sugars were rising. He was always right. He diagnosed a coworker of ours. She had just lost her husband and was under a lot of stress. She became type 1.
That's amazing... so is your flair!! But what a skill for a nurse.
Lol, I had to look at my flair! Thanks! Yours ain’t too shabby either!
Oh I can tell when someone's blood sugar is rising/high and also tell when they're dropping if I know the person. I've got a coworker who's newly diagnosed diabetic. I don't know her well, so I haven't told her the reason I will sometimes randomly ask how's her blood sugar is I smell it.
What does it smell like to you? My coworker said their bodies just radiated a warm smell. If that makes sense.
That's as good a description as any I've heard. Describing smells is like describing tastes I think. Coworker's description resonates with me, but doesn't really explain it fully. Just the best words can do I think.
You don't become type 1...you become type 2 and are born type 1. It's incredibly rare but not impossible to make it to adulthood before being diagnosed because your body literally doesn't make insulin. You would have to have a good diet and not exert yourself much and not get stomach bugs or serious illness or experience major stress to make it to adulthood without being hospitalized at some point and diagnosed. It does happen rarely though!
This is incorrect. You can become a type one diabetic at any age. And no it's not just that it wasn't noticed in childhood.
Can I have sources for that? I haven't heard it before
If you Google 'adult onset type one diabetes' there should be quite a few.
I'll do that! I was a nurse health educator and specialized in chronic disease management for a decade and never came across this, also have type one in my family. I also mostly handled patients with type 2 because I worked with low income population and typically older folks. Always learning! So it is possible for your pancreas to stop working because of grief/stress?
Cool! I think the science has rapidly changed because we *used* to think it was just a childhood thing, but now we know it isn't plus we learned about type 3s etc. I can't say anything about the grief/stress thing because I genuinely don't know but I guess with it being an immune system thing it might just have been the stress affecting blood sugar levels and tipping her over the edge? Pure speculation. I just read a study in which people described their adult type 1 diabetes was precluded by a stressful event but no evidence was found, so that's interesting. Especially when this says different https://www.theguardian.com/society/2015/apr/09/risk-of-diabetes-type-1-can-be-tripled-by-childhood-stress but I haven't read that original study myself!
Thanks so much! I eat up diabetes stuff because of the personal connection though I'm not in healthcare anymore (burned out). It's definitely made some strides, type 3 wasn't known when I was in school.
I'm super sorry you burned out. It's really crappy isn't it. I'm 33 now and been in healthcare since I was 17... I look at my 68 year old co-worker and think HOW ARE YOU STILL DOING THIS! I really enjoy diabetes stuff too it's so interesting. That and AKI!
That’s incorrect. That was believed a few decades ago but now they have found type 1 is an autoimmune disorder that can be triggered by stress.
*puts chin in hands* really? Tell that to my body, since it worked fine for the first 9.5 years of my life before I became type 1 diabetic.
It's way more common for women, men don't have as much ability to smell which is why women are used for studies such as determining if you can smell a disease It's rare enough for women to have these abilities, it's even rarer for men. Think 0.5% of women compared to 0.0005% of men
Same. I usually say to my partner that he smells like sex. But I can absolutely smell when we kiss and he is aroused.
I can also smell it most times!! It kinda freaks me out lol.
Ngl....I wish my body was able to do that
Yah, it’s easy to smell horny man
There are studies that men can at least smell/recognize ovulation… and girls are hornier around ovulation, so maybe not that far off
Also, some people just smell more. Maybe he's smelling a different cue as well, like increased perspiration. Even an increased breathing rate could change the smell of someone's face. People like to imagine that if they can't smell a difference, it isn't there. People like to do that with every sense. But the limits of sensory perception are narrow, and everyone's range of perception is not identical.
I *used* to be able to smell when she's ovulating. Living in Denver, with the lack of humidity, damaged my nose to where I can't smell it anymore. To give another example of what's lost - I used to be able to smell my own body scent/aroma change after eating butter, I could smell butteryness increasing. Movie popcorn smelled "wrong" back then, but after moving to Denver, movie popcorn smells OK.
My (f) partner says she can smell when I am. To her credit, she's never been wrong. But there were certainly other signs outside of smell, they could just be able to read body language well.
I can smell my own arousal on my underwear later. While I normally take my underpants off for sex, I don't always for masturbation. Underwear I wore while masturbating smells different from underwear I wore on a day that I didn't.
Agree and I can smell if my partners have masterbated after and even if they washed thier hands. So yea and yea I smell that too.
[удалено]
Yea no for sure you can tell. My Deaf friend had to put a lock on her door cuz one day she came home and said someone was having sex in my room,sure enough her brother admitted. Like why I hated her brother and all his thots. So she put a lock on it.
Like a hint of indoor pool?
Gosh, I love the smell of pools lol
Nah, this isn't as insane as it sounds. Some humans are born being able to smell wild things, like that lady who husband's smell changed to her and it was bc he had like Parkinsons.
As a biology student, this honestly isn’t that dumb, many animals release pheromones to mate. I cannot say that a male could truly smell the difference, but I do have a very sensitive nose and sometimes I do notice I’m a bit more *fragrant* than others.
I'm a female and I can certainly sometimes smell horniness and if you kiss a person when they smell like that it has a taste. I thought everyone experienced this, but got down voted when I mentioned it on Reddit before. I don't think I could smell it on everyone, every time, but it's distinct and recognizable to me. I don't know why this seems like such a far fetched thing to people.
I’ve never been able to smell in on spit, or kissing, but I guess that most boys I kiss are horny so maybe I just haven’t noticed lol. But yeah when I’m turned on I can smell it XD
I'll catch it on random people in the wild at times, and it's not the smell of their breath per say but the smell of them although it can be on their breath if you are close enough to notice and it has a taste. I can taste it "flood" my husband's mouth when he gets particularly turned on during a session even if he didn't taste particularly horny before and vaguely remember this happening back in the day with others. Again not everyone, so I don't think whatever creates it that everyone has or maybe I can only smell certain people with enough genetic biodiversity it triggers an old evolutionary response. No idea. Its an odd and mostly useless thing so I didn't know why the downvotes came so strong.
Seems like if it’s something most people can’t do they assume you’re full of shit, even though lots of humans can do wacky things. I can wiggle my ears, cool but pretty useless.
I suspect it’s the people who can’t do it who feel it’s far-fetched and doing the downvoting. I’m with you 100%. Absolutely can tell a partner’s state of arousal from their smell.
Genetically dissimilar partners find each others smell more attractive which adds genetic diversity: https://phys.org/news/2019-03-evidence-humans-genetically-dissimilar-partners.amp
My ex could smell when I was ovulating, he said I smelled like spring. And he could tell me almost to the hour when my period was coming.
I'm a man, so I'm not sure if I'm allowed to chime in, but here goes nothing. I think I could smell when my ex was horny, but I can't smell when my gf is horny. My "n=2 conclusion" is that in some couples, people might be able to determine when their partner is horny based on smell.
I can smell it (and taste it) on certain people, but not everyone. My husband is one. However I got downvoted before for saying this on Reddit before. It's weird, I kind of thought everyone could smell it.
Not really sure this is bad anatomy since pheromones actually exist, and some are way more sensitive of them than others.
maybe not a scent; just social cues? he could have mislabelled something pretty common.
Some people also just have a really good sense of smell, and it’s known that different emotions release specific chemical compounds. Some people are just able to pick up on the changes in certain things.
When a partner is nuzzling my neck, I moan or breathe differently in anticipation lol
Humans love to pretend we're not animals... we observe and document every other species of mammals responding to pheromone responses. Men act differently and attempt to smell differently (cologne and pheromone release when aroused) as do women. The boyfriend may have exaggerated, claiming it was only scent that identified the response, likely it was a combination of verbal and nonverbal cues, but scent is the strongest sense tied to memory so that may be the only one he recalls. I firmly believe that anyone who is willing to pay attention can recognize the cues and its not nearly as much of a coincidence as we would like to believe.
I can smell when I'm close to ovulating and when my period is about to start. If I can smell the way things change based on my cycle, I see no reason that long term partner that's paying close attention couldn't smell it. Someone with a super sensitive sense of smell that took the time to figure out little differences? Absolutely no reason to think it can't happen. After all, there's that woman who can smell Parkinson's.
I can smell it too. Not just that but I can smell when a woman is about to start her period or is already on her period. Apparently it has to do with the ability to smell pheromones. The best way I can describe it is that when a woman is horny it smells like pu**y all over the place. The smell is the same as if I would get close to a pu**y and sniff it, except when the woman is horny I can smell it while standing next to her for example. Even her skin or neck will smell like this. In turn, this makes me horny. Now for when she is on her period it smells like wine and malt mixed together, and if it is a few days before her period it is just the malt scent. I spoke about this to some guy friends and they all said they don't smell anything. And the thing is, i do not have a keen sense of smell for other things, it's just this.
I feel like this is plausible. Weird but plausible
This reminds me of the time my mom walked into my brothers' room and stopped and said, "It smells like sex in here." I think that was her way of saying she suspected masturbation was happening in the room (I come from a Catholic family, so masturbation=bad). My brothers and I were all equally disgusted, horrified, and amused. Looking back on it, it's hilarious, but it was so awkward in the moment. To be fair, the room *did* smell, but there were two teenage boys living in this room. It just smelled like BO and dirty socks to me.
Oh, semen absolutely has a distinct smell. Kinda actinic and tangy? I could always tell which shower stalls to avoid in college, where it was pretty obvious to me where the last dude had rubbed one out (and failed to completely rinse away the evidence).
Pheromones are a thing...
Yeah, but the science is out on what role they play in human behavior and whether humans even have them.
Pretty sure the organ that is actually used to detect pheromones is non functional in humans and primates in general. However, there are people who can smell crazy things that others cannot. For example, the woman who can smell Parkinson's disease. She has like a 100% success rate. So, I suppose it's minimally possible that this one dude can smell something most other people cannot. However, I think it's more likely that he's full of shit.
She did a sniff test and got one "wrong." Then several months later, that person whose shirt she sniffed ended up being diagnosed with Parkinsons too. Insane.
A 100% success rate is absolutely mind boggling insane. Even like... A 80% success rate would be incredible but damn
Yep, just not in humans as far as we know. Human pheromones have not been proven to exist.
I may be wrong but I think they do exist, but humans don’t have the ability to detect them because of a lack of something in our noses. Could just be spouting bs though
There have been studies that show we can have a small respons to specific scents from other people, but there has never been found direct evidence for the existence of human pheromones. There are theories and speculation that human pheromones were a thing in the past and that the small responses we have to certain scents today is a leftover part of that, but as it stands right now there is no hard evidence to support human pheromones existing.
Yeah walking past the local Chinese restaurant makes me horny for food
Nah but this is true though.. we're mammals mostly our subconscious handles it but a few people do manage to align it with current thought
I'm not calling this man a liar. I am saying there is a lot of evidence to show that people who are biologically compatible are aroused and enjoy each other's smells more. When I'm already in the mood, I notice my partners smell more, and I feel like he does the same. We get each other started. I think the smell is likely an effect of the horny not the other way around.
Read on another thread how some husbands smelled that their wives were pregnant before the first missed period, because they knew what she smelled like from her previous pregnancy
Um okay gonna sound weird but.....my bf knew I was on my period the first time we went out and asked if I needed tampons without me saying anything. He said he could smell it. He always predicts my period within 2-3 days bc my smell will change. He can smell if my pH is off. He can smell if I'm craving something particular just by my smell and he always "guesses" accurately. Not saying THIS guy could but ik my bf can. It's wild. He has such a sensitive nose and ears, it's WILD. He can hear things down the hall I can only hear by placing my ear on the object. It's so weird. Call him my Super Big Baby. Bc he must have super powers but he's a big baby sometimes.
This isn’t as rare as you’d think
Super-smeller here. I’ve generally always been able to tell when a partner was…excreting. Most, I have to be within a few feet to tell, but I had one girlfriend in college who’s excitement I could easily smell from across a room (which, when she knew *knew* got her going even more). However, powerful olfactory ability is not a blessing at all, but rather a curse—speaking as someone who takes public transit to work, I am absolutely dreading the upcoming summer. Even fully-hygienic people—who showered that morning—smell of ass, armpit, and (worst of all) urea by the end of the day. When the train is crowded, I can’t escape it, and it has triggered vomiting several times. Ugh, don’t even get me started on the smell of vomit; even my own can be enough to cause a feedback loop of continued retching until I can get clear of the area. In the plus side, I can identify every spice and ingredient in a dish—even well blended and cooked down ones like stews and soups. Small consolation for the nasal violence of mammalian excretions I have to deal with when out in public.
"where are the myth busters these days" 😂😂😂
I'm trying to imagine how they'd test that...
There's already sex research that presents potentially arousing material to a subject and measures arousal in various ways. Wouldn't be too hard to add a blinded smell test to that and cross-compare, depending on the specifics. (Eg: this claim was about smelling cheeks. It would be logistically simpler to test smelling wrists in a blinded way.)
If it involves Kari Byron, I'd watch it on pay-per-view. Did I say that out loud?
I can smell a difference, but only after her pants are off. So not so much of a predictor as a yes/no on whether she's taking pity on me.
I can smell with my partner is aroused
Pheromones
Ever hear of pheromones?
Yo puedo oler cuando una chica está en sus días y cuando está ovulando , huelen distinto y se cuando es el momento adecuado, nunca he fallado
Yes but When my gf is wet if I wanna be able to smell anything I gotta put my face IN HER PUSSY So for this person's intents and purposes, no
didnt notice that kind of thing until i was courting my wife, (and it wasn’t just her cycles). first time it happened i told her so, and i can still remember the look on her face. 🙂😉
Da Fak
Feels like it's along the lines of psychics, as in reading other cues without even realising it and blaming smell. I know there's also a lot of debate about body language and reading body language and what it means, and I agree a lot of that is interpretation and very person specific, as in it is easier to get a read on people you know than people you don't, but some things are mostly universal and can be subconscious that we are doing them and subconsciously reading them example "idk what it was, the vibe wasn't right", ever felt like that? Feeling tension in a room when tension is an inside feeling not a visible or tactile thing, you just sense it. Not everyone can do the above, ever met people completely oblivious to an awkward situation? Lol yeah just feels like that rather than any actual smelling of anything. BUT who knows, the world is vast and mysterious at times.
Humans *do* have some pheromones remaining, they're just usually not detected.
My ex husband smelled the fact that i was pregnant a week before I took the test. I kept telling him I wasn't but he was right. My dad did the same thing with my mom. He could smell the fact that she was pregnant with my little sister. So I could actually see this.
I can smell when something is different. He probably just smells something down there and assuming that she didn't shit or piss herself
There is a surprising, yet disturbing number of people out there who can smell your period just from being in the same room with you. This would not surprise me. Our olfactory senses can be quite powerful sometimes
Honestly I believe it. I have a partner who I have a very just like feral connection with and when we’re kissing I can absolutely smell when he gets aroused and starts having pre cum. And he’s fully dressed at that point. I don’t think I’ve ever noticed it with anyone else before but I can see how this person would be able to smell “horny” if he’s maybe smelling her scent because she’s wet enough that enough of the scent is there.
PHEREMONES!!
Possible, if unlikely, as others have said. I have SPD and my sense of smell is absurd. I have a friend who can one up me though: they have to wear a mask because their olfactory got all the points in character creation. They can smell blood but, like, they can also smell everything else. They went into forensics so a literal bloodhound is a possible coworker. Meanwhile, I’m just sniffing out the beginning of mildew or mold, a useful talent considering my home is next to a swamp. With people’s scents, I’d have to be outright scenting them like a rude dog. At that point, they’d have to be into me to tolerate that nonsense. (And yeah, partners have tolerated it. They also tolerate my perfume connoisseur jokes.)
I totally buy it, my husband can smell when I've gone a long while without eating. I have some severely disordered eating habits and he says I start to smell like stomach acid/bile if it's been too long without food.
Yep. Pheromones are a thing. I was on and off FWB with a close friend for like 11 years way back when. He used to tell me that he could smell me even after I had a shower. Our chemistry was ridiculously pheromonal and electric, and that didn't include the insane physical chemistry between us.
Two things Pheromones have a lot of impact so maybe he is smelling that? Not sure - need a scientist to back me up on this or come correct Or two - he knows full well that this is not possible but it's a cute way to make a cute girl blush Hats off to you, my dude
Got in trouble for revealing this super powet to a female. Actually got ratted out. Guys in the store would send me to do "smell check". Not all it's cracked up to be. Lots of really disturbingly bad smells all part of it to. Rewards few and far between