samdavis@maelstrom.Berkeley.EDU (Benjamin Davis) (04/16/91)
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samdavis@maelstrom.Berkeley.EDU (Benjamin Davis) (04/16/91)
Sorry about article 4997 - I've never posted an article before, so I screwed up. I'll try not to waste your time anymore. In _The_Straight_Dope_, Cecil Adams explains that the reason women's periods fall into sync is because of chemicals from their sweat: it seems that some women are "dominant" in that their sweat causes other women's cycles to fall in with theirs, and other women are more susceptible to suggestion from the chemicals around them (I think these chemicals are pheromones?). So if women live together or work together for extended periods (no pun intended) of time, their menstrual cycles will go in sync. The Straight Dope is a highly interesting collection of trivia - I recommend it even if you're not (like me) someone who generally likes trivia. Hopefully this will be my first -successful- posting to the net. Apologies again about my mistake (I'm very inept with vi).
fzcapit@MIZAR.UCDAVIS.EDU (John Capitanio) (04/16/91)
In article <1991Apr16.014518.11307@agate.berkeley.edu>, samdavis@maelstrom.Berkeley.EDU (Benjamin Davis) writes: [stuff deleted] >In _The_Straight_Dope_, Cecil Adams explains that the reason women's periods >fall into sync is because of chemicals from their sweat: it seems that some >women are "dominant" in that their sweat causes other women's cycles to fall >in with theirs, and other women are more susceptible to suggestion from the >chemicals around them (I think these chemicals are pheromones?). So if >women live together or work together for extended periods (no pun intended) >of time, their menstrual cycles will go in sync. >The Straight Dope is a highly interesting collection of trivia - I >recommend it even if you're not (like me) someone who generally likes trivia. I meant to respond to the original post, but... There has been considerable work, since the 1960s on olfactory signals (pheromones) and their influence on as pects of reproduction. Much of the work has been done on rodents. The original article demonstrating (or at least suggesting) pheromonal mediation of menstrual synchrony and suppression in humans is from M.K. McClintock, Menstrual synchrony and suppression, *Nature*, 1971, vol. 229, 244-245. Any good (and actually most bad) textbooks on animal behavior can provide lots of references on the rodent (and some primate) work. I think McClintock has also been involved with other research demonstrating the role of olfaction in social identification. These studies have included having people wear t-shirts for a couple of days, putting them in jars, then asking people to smell each one and select their own. Another study I remember involved babies discriminating between the breast pads of their own mother and those of other lactating females. A much underappreciated sensory system, olfaction. I forget the references to the above studies. If anyone has any interest, let me know. John
mnl@ukc.ac.uk (M.N.Leonard) (04/17/91)
In article <1991Apr16.014518.11307@agate.berkeley.edu> samdavis@maelstrom.Berkeley.EDU (Benjamin Davis) writes: >In _The_Straight_Dope_, Cecil Adams explains that the reason women's periods >fall into sync is because of chemicals from their sweat: it seems that some >women are "dominant" in that their sweat causes other women's cycles to fall >in with theirs, and other women are more susceptible to suggestion from the >chemicals around them (I think these chemicals are pheromones?). So if >women live together or work together for extended periods (no pun intended) >of time, their menstrual cycles will go in sync. I agree with the idea that pheromones secreted within a group of women living or working together can induce menstrual synchronism but it gets rather more complex if one or more of the women are taking oral contraceptives, in this case no amount of exposure to other peoples pheromones will alter the menstrual cycle. I recall reading a paper in the dim distant past recording menstrual synchronicity however, the authors took great care to measure the results from women who were in an enclosed environment such as prison inmates. I think that if a group of normal women living together (presumably some of which were taking "the pill"), there would almost certainly be no synchronisation of menstruation as each of these women would be secreting the pheremone's appropiate to the stage of their cycle so no "pheromonal pull" would exist to alter any womans given cycle. Any Comments Mike Leonard