Unbelievable facts
There is a special chemical compound that is responsible for the smell characteristic of an elderly person. It is called 2-nonenal, and the body begins to produce it after the age of 30.
This chemical compound is an unsaturated colorless aldehyde, which causes a special chemical reaction in our body.
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As we age, our skin's production of fatty acids increases, and antioxidant production inevitably decreases. Fatty acids oxidize after production, thereby increasing the volume of 2-nonenal significantly.
The smell of old age
This is the explanation for the origin of that oily herbaceous aroma that is so difficult to wash off. Lipids in water do not know how to dissolve, so the heavy smell caused by fatty acids is incredibly difficult to wash off.
Let's talk a little more about what changes, including body odor, occur in our body as we age.
Many of us are familiar with this smell: it can often be found in our grandparents' homes, in nursing homes, and in other places where older people are constantly staying. Very often this smell is attributed to poor hygiene, but in reality, as we said above, it is an integral component of our body odor that appears with age.
The smell of old age from the body
Between the ages of 30 and 40, our skin begins to suffer from a decrease in its antioxidant protection. Hormonal changes that occur with age in both the male and female bodies also contribute to the production of nonenal.
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That is, as the skin becomes weaker, its natural oils oxidize more quickly, producing nonenal. Since it is not water-soluble, nonenal remains on the skin despite regular hygiene procedures. Therefore, the smell persists both on the body and on clothes, even in the cleanest environment.
Is it possible to get rid of Nonenal?
Just like normal body odor, a healthy lifestyle can minimize nonenal production. That is, we are talking about regular training, avoiding stress, refraining from smoking, drinking alcohol in moderation, eating clean food and plenty of water, and enough rest.
When it comes to personal care products, when creating ordinary soap, a lot of deodorants are often used to eliminate unpleasant odors, such as ammonia (found in urine), trimethylamine and sulfide oxygen (found in feces and urine), propionic acid (found in sweat), and isovaleric acid (an unpleasant component of a bad smelling foot).
But all of these ingredients are ineffective in eliminating or neutralizing nonenal.
Old smell
One Japanese skincare brand claims to have found a natural combination that can help: persimmons and green tea. The tannins in persimmon extract help break down and wash away nonenal, while the antioxidants in green tea are supposed to detoxify the skin and prolong the deodorizing effects.
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This company offers this combination in a whole range of different products.
Personal hygiene in adulthood
Of course, good hygiene habits are not 100 percent effective against nonenal, but they can nevertheless minimize other unpleasant odors and prevent problems with health.
Even regularly opening the windows in the house will help expel old air, giving way to fresh air. However, an older person tends to complicate a lot of things, becoming more and more complicated over the years.
The truth about the “smell of old age” is that it's a natural part of the aging process, and there shouldn't be people who feel ashamed of it. Some people don't like the smell, but many people associate this smell with their favorite memories of their grandparents and parents.
The public should encourage open discussion about age-related changes in order to minimize the stigma surrounding aging and ensure that the public has access to information , which they need to adopt healthy habits.
The smell of old age or why older people smell
A few more facts about human smell.
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1. The disease, like medication, changes a person's smell. Older people are more likely to take medications than young people. Other factors also influence body odor. For example, it is known that eating garlic has a negative effect on how we smell.
2. Some drugs increase sweating, including non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs, antidepressants. Medical conditions that affect body odor: diabetes, hyperthyroidism, liver, kidney disorders, schizophrenia, and menopause.
3. Older people are mostly less likely to swim and change clothes. Very often this is due to the fact that they are afraid of falling to the floor, or it may be difficult for them. Therefore, loved ones should pay attention to this and help as needed.
4. Our sense of smell, along with our other senses, dulls with age. As a result, an elderly person may not be able to identify an unpleasant odor on their own, or to put on too much perfume or cologne.
Also read: 10 important brain signals that it is aging faster than your body
5. Oral hygiene has a strong effect on a person's odor. During the aging process, the amount of saliva produced in our mouth significantly decreases, thereby reducing the natural protection against bad breath. Older people often have periodontal disease, which provokes halitosis (bad breath). Bridges and dentures can also keep fungi and bacteria in check, leading to musty odors and infections.
6. With age, a person loses the ability to feel dehydrated. Because the pituitary gland sends weaker thirst signals, older people tend to drink less water. Dehydration causes sweat and urine to smell stronger, and the skin also has a not very pleasant smell.
7. Older people tend to own older things, which means that their property has smelled differently. And if a person lives surrounded by old smells, then he also carries this smell on himself.
There is also an interesting theory that the need to smell the age of our distant ancestors was evolutionary in nature, because an elderly person is no longer able to continue childbirth. But it is not clear what prevented the visual definition of age.
It is likely that by smell they recognized not only age, but also the state of human health, because in serious illnesses, our body emits a specific smell, and old age and illness are almost they always go side by side.
Proponents of this theory say as evidence that certain representatives of the animal world use the outgoing smell to calculate the age of relatives. For example, rodents. Is it possible that humans still have this ability?
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In one study, 20 young people of each gender were invited to a focus group. They were non-smokers who did not use drugs or alcohol, so they were fine with their sense of smell.
Three groups have been created for “donors”. The first included 20-30 year olds, the second — 35-50 year olds, and the third — 75-90 year old people. People in transition age (30-35 and 50-75) were not involved in the study to make the results of the experiment more accurate.
During the week, donors were required not to drink alcohol, smoke, and eat healthy foods that did not affect body odor. They also had to use fragrance-free hygiene products. Every night for seven days, they went to sleep in T-shirts with special odor-absorbing tampons sewn into their armpits.
A week later, people in the focus group were asked to determine the age of the people wearing them by the smell of the T-shirts. It turned out that adults and young people were 8 percent more likely to guess than during random guessing, and older people were identified 12 percent more often.
However, the experiment had one more task. People from the focus group had to talk about the intensity of the smell, as well as how pleasant it was. And here the results were very surprising. The smell of an old person is much weaker than that of a younger one. Moreover, the smells of old people seemed less unpleasant to the subjects than the smells of other people.
Read also: Older people are worse at distinguishing certain odors
According to researchers, this fact is due to the fact that the sweat glands in an old person do not work so intensively. However, if an elderly person's room has not been ventilated for a long time, or if there are many old people in the room, the smell will be concentrated and easy to smell.
Note that men smell sweat much worse than women. However, it is easier for women to remove the unpleasant smell in the shower and use a deodorant. These measures do not always help men.