{"id":540555,"date":"2025-01-14T09:59:10","date_gmt":"2025-01-14T12:59:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/?p=540555"},"modified":"2025-01-14T15:59:48","modified_gmt":"2025-01-14T18:59:48","slug":"the-chemistry-of-a-teenagers-smell","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/en\/the-chemistry-of-a-teenagers-smell\/","title":{"rendered":"The chemistry of a teenager\u2019s smell"},"content":{"rendered":"
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L\u00e9o Ramos Chaves\u2009\/\u2009Revista Pesquisa FAPESP<\/span>Teenagers walking in the center of the city of S\u00e3o PauloL\u00e9o Ramos Chaves\u2009\/\u2009Revista Pesquisa FAPESP<\/span><\/p><\/div>\n

Why does a child\u2019s natural odor change as they become an adolescent? According to a study led by chemist Helene Loos of the University of Erlangen\u2013Nuremberg, Germany, there is a chemical explanation. The group identified both similarities and differences when comparing adolescents (14\u201318 years old) and young children (0\u20133 years old). After puberty, two hormones linked to body odor (a strong, unpleasant smell) emerge: androstenone and androstenol. Teenagers also typically have more dodecanoic acid, which is described as having a waxy or soapy odor; alpha-isomethyl ionone, with a violet aroma; 4-ethyloctanoic acid, with a nauseating \u201cgoaty\u201d odor; and patchouli alcohol, which a few decades ago was a popular perfume. Babies and young children, on the other hand, have more vanillin, which has a vanilla-like aroma. Previous studies indicate that mothers can distinguish the scent of their own baby, but not the scent given off by their teenager, which can be aversive. The difference may be related to the need to care for children in their early years, in contrast to the importance of giving adolescents independence after puberty (American Council of Science and Health<\/em>, May 13; Communications Chemistry<\/em>, March 21).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Hormone residues alter body odor in adolescence","protected":false},"author":475,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1651],"tags":[211],"coauthors":[785],"class_list":["post-540555","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-notes","tag-biochemistry"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/540555","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/475"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=540555"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/540555\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":540557,"href":"https:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/540555\/revisions\/540557"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=540555"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=540555"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=540555"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=540555"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}