The Scent of Disease Human Body Odor Contains an Early Chemosensory Cue of Sickness
The Scent of Disease Human Body Odor Contains an Early Chemosensory Cue of Sickness
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DOI：
10.1177/0956797613515681
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发表时间：
2014-03-01
影响因子：
8.2
通讯作者：
Lekander, Mats
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
Olsson, Mats J.;Lundstrom, Johan N.;Lekander, Mats
观察性研究表明，随着时间的推移，一些疾病会导致病人身上不同来源散发出特有的气味。然而，从进化的角度来看，如果健康个体可以检测到先天免疫反应作为抵御各种病原体感染的第一道防线，以优化避免传染，那将是更有利的。我们通过向健康个体注射内毒素（脂多糖）来激活其先天免疫系统。在短短几个小时内，与接触安慰剂的人相比，接触内毒素的人会产生更令人厌恶的体味。此外，这种效应在统计上是由个体的免疫激活水平介导的。这种对人类早期先天免疫反应的化学感应检测代表了疾病嗅觉的第一个实验证据，并支持“行为免疫反应”的概念，即通过改变人际接触模式来保护健康个体免受患病个体的侵害。
Observational studies have suggested that with time, some diseases result in a characteristic odor emanating from different sources on the body of a sick individual. Evolutionarily, however, it would be more advantageous if the innate immune response were detectable by healthy individuals as a first line of defense against infection by various pathogens, to optimize avoidance of contagion. We activated the innate immune system in healthy individuals by injecting them with endotoxin (lipopolysaccharide). Within just a few hours, endotoxin-exposed individuals had a more aversive body odor relative to when they were exposed to a placebo. Moreover, this effect was statistically mediated by the individuals' level of immune activation. This chemosensory detection of the early innate immune response in humans represents the first experimental evidence that disease smells and supports the notion of a "behavioral immune response" that protects healthy individuals from sick ones by altering patterns of interpersonal contact.