Your Unique Odortype

In the same way that your brain is unique—there has never been one just like it every before and there will never be another identical to it ever again—and you have unique fingerprints, you possess a unique odortype. According to researchers, your odortype, your genetically determined body odor, acts like an olfactory nametag. This helps to distinguish one person from another. It may even play a part you selecting a mate. Your odortype is determined in part by genes in a genomic region called the major histocompatibility complex (MHC), which plays a role in the immune system. The type of food you eat can influence your body odor; garlic for example, especially if you eat a lot of it. Can you completely mask or alter your odortype by what you eat? Apparently not. Studies have shown that chemical analyses could still detect an underlying odortype. According to study author Gary Beauchamp, a behavioral biologist, this suggests that electric sensors can be developed to detect individual odortypes as well as body odor differences linked with diseases. These sensors potentially could assist with early detection and rapid diagnosis of conditions such as skin and lung cancers and perhaps some specific viral diseases.