Society

German researchers and chemists specializing in odor are combining their skills to study, in depth, the question of “stench” in adolescents. But why is this period of life more conducive to bad body odors?

Teenagers are disturbed, both psychologically and physically, by the pituitary gland, a gland located at the base of the brain which takes on the role of hormonal conductor, indicates JVTech. The pituitary gland stimulates “the gonads (ovaries in girls, testicles in boys)” and encourages them “to produce sex hormones”. A back-and-forth of hormones is at the origin of adolescents' mood swings, as well as their physical changes.

The body sheds, changes, transforms. Growth accelerates, “fats are distributed, secondary sexual characteristics flourish” and bodies secrete a lot of substances that are sometimes smelly, sometimes unsightly (we think of excess sebum, spots and sweat). And if our teenagers stink a little more than average, scientists actually match their odor to that of “strong cheese”, it's because new sweat glands, responsible for perspiration, start up during puberty. They are called apocrine glands. The latter are mainly active in the genitals and armpits. They secrete a whitish substance which, when in contact with the skin and the bacteria naturally present on it, create a smelly mixture.

German scientists have looked into the question and have gone even further. They “placed pieces of sewn fabric under the armpits of 18 children and 18 adolescents and then compared the samples in the laboratory. That’s how they found out the carboxylic acid characteristic of sebum, which is the cause of the famous cheese smell,” says JVTech. On March 21, chemists published the results of their analysis in the journal Communications Chemistry, and according to them, “two steroids are particularly responsible for the bad smell of teenagers. One gives off a musky smell and the other... urine.”

(MH with AsD - Source: JVTech - Illustration: Unsplash)