Not So Moldy Oldies
I’m a sucker for scientific studies. Who doesn’t enjoy a good p-value and confidence interval? (Ha ha, pee-value.) But I often wonder if the money used to fund certain projects would be better spent elsewhere. And by certain I mean ridiculous.
Case in point: Did you know that during a GOP presidential debate, Rick Santorum blinked more than twice the average rate of the other competitors? Those Republican eyelashes netted an impressive 61 bats per minute. That’s more times a minute than Donald Trump annoys me.
More recently, another study snagged my senses. And with a subject matter of old-person smell, how could it not?
In this essential study, 41 lucky volunteers sniffed jars containing underarm pads “steeped” in five days’ worth of other volunteers’ body odor, the idea being to determine if the inhalers could identify the scents of 20- to 30-year olds, 45- to 55-year olds, and 75- to 95-year olds. You know, to see if old people really do stink more than the rest of us.
Not to be deterred by their foul assignment, the olfactory-blessed volunteers shined in their duty, sniffing out age groups “better than would be predicted by chance.” There’s that pee-value again (te hee, te hee).
And guess what? Old folks’ odors rated the “highest for pleasantness and lowest for intensity.” Ha! Take that, you young whippersnappers.
Why does an octogenarian smell sweeter? According to the study, perhaps because of reproduction. You see, we determine how closely related we are to someone with scent. This, in turn, results in reproductive success. Kind of like survival of the fittest fragrance.
Make sense? Don’t feel bad. It doesn’t to me either. But I’m sure glad someone invested time and money to tell me Grandma smells better than Timmy, which, for anyone who’s suffered the scent of a little boy after he’s played outside, is common knowledge already.
So for those of you older than 75, celebrate. Your underarm odors put the rest of us stink balls to shame.
Any studies you think are stupid? Have you ever been in a study? Did you sniff armpit pads? Does Donald Trump annoy you? Would you sniff Donald Trump’s armpit?
Images from Microsoft Clip Art
Related articles
- Scientists Confirm Existence of ‘Old Person Smell’ (news.health.com)
- Humans Can Sniff Out Old Age in Others, Study Shows (nlm.nih.gov)
- Smells Like Old Spirit (news.sciencemag.org)
104 Responses to “Not So Moldy Oldies”
I love studies that purport to prove something is bad. Like low carb diets. Everyone starts gorging on carbs. But they never realize who funded the study–producers of high carb foods. One thing I learned in statistics is you can make the numbers say whatever you want.
So true. And you hit on a key point–who’s funding the study? It can shine a whole new light on the perspective.
Thanks for stopping by and commenting, Kourtney.
OK, now I am officially looking forward to being 75;).
Hey, we gotta have something to look forward to.
Thanks for stopping by.
Always a pleasure:-)
Verrrry funny!! I think the older I get the sharper my sense of smell is…and I’m not sure if that’s a good thing!
Same with me! It drives my husband nuts that I have such a good sniffer.
There isn’t enough enticement to have me smelling the soggy pads of armpits. It just wouldn’t happen. What are we doing to our poor uni students? This could seriously hurt their brains.
I know, right? Can you imagine consenting to that? Likely poor university students as you suggest. Maybe the investigators gave them free deodarant as reimbursement.
hehe …” Vote for Barack ! He smell so much better than Mitt.”
Perhaps you were in a study that required you to sniff the armpit pads of politicians? If so, I like your conclusion.
Thanks for stopping by. Good to see you again!
They could have saved a whole lot of money if “they” would have just come and asked me. I know that older people don’t smell bad because I worked in a residential care place And someone told me. And it’s true older people smell better than younger folks unless they have bad teeth issues. I didn’t know about the whole mating thing or what did you say reproductive thing. :+) Donald Trump doesn’t really annoy me much which is good because there a plenty of things in life that can annoy me. You don’t want to get on the Trumpsters bad side because he can hold a grudge for a really long time.
Yeah, I better watch out, or The Donald won’t buy my book…
As long as hygiene is maintained, I think most people smell just fine. But it is nice to know I’ll become more fragrant as I age.
I was involved in several Masters and Johnson studies. It was a weird time in my life.
Oh, I bet it was. I hope for your sake, as well as the sake of any potential offspring, that electrodes and shocks weren’t used in the most private of places…
I always wonder about the people who keep sports statistics and who gets to count the number of passes made, received, intercepted, ….. It boggles the mind!
Would be a good job for Rainman.
Without knowing why the studies were done, it’s hard to dismiss them out of hand as “silly” although they appear silly at first glance – How’s that for maintaining my scientific open-mindedness?
Seriously, a study aimed at diffusing society’s prejudice against the elderly does not seem to me entirely worthless.
And since we cannot rely on the news media to report to us what is the truth is rather than merely playing “he said – she said” with politician’s statements, the eye-blink barometer for deceitfulness might just be the salvation of democracy in America.
I agree with you, and I’m actually a fan of research. I spoofed these studies, but I’m sure if broken down, most will have merit. The elderly smell study may be important for neurochemical or neurobiology reasons. And yes, maybe counting eye blinks would be a better truth detector in politics!
Thanks for stopping by.
I get what you were doing, Carrie. It was a very funny post (as usual!) It’s just that, having been a researcher (never did anything like these studies), make me feel like playing devil’s advocate a little bit.
I hear you. I loved doing research. If I hadn’t transitioned into writing, my plan was to transition into research full-time. Of course, given the challenges of writing, I may end up there after all…
Haha! Thanks for writing this post – I love it! I recently wrote on the same subject…sorta… http://talktodiana.wordpress.com/2012/05/30/jobs-passports-road-rage-and-bigfoot/
Thanks for stopping by! I checked out your post. Very funny. It always drives me crazy when people say, “It will be in the last place you look.” No duh!
You’re very welcome! Thanks for visiting me too.
My Granny Brook was 88 at her death and I swear you could still smell the “White Shoulders” on the clothes in her closets for the two years my grandfather lived after she died. He, on the other hand, was not one to use deodorant often. By the time he died, the sweaty farmer smell and the “White Shoulders” smell was enough to make you gag.
Makes me miss my Granny and Grandaddy. I’d take them smelling any old way if I could just talk to them again.
Very funny — but then again, you usually are. Sandy
Thanks, Sandy. And I agree, if I could spend another day with my grandparents, I’d take them no matter how they smelled. But my grandmother always smelled good–like yummy baked goods. I wouldn’t mind going out with that as my signature smell.
These are all invaluable insights into the world we live in! I’m happy you shared this research with me so I can wow people with new ice-breaker material. Armpit smell – always a hit topic at house parties! Also…poor Timmy.
Well, don’t let it ever be said that I don’t educate around here. Eye blinking and body odor are two things everyone should know about.
I’m glad you stopped by, because when I saw your little Gravatar head, it dawned on me I didn’t have you on my blogroll yet, a situation that must be rectified. Also, since you gave me permission, I’m going to link to your glass door post on Monday the 11th. I’m too lazy to write a post on vacation days, and yours should provide readers with a good laugh.
Glad to drop by. I’m quite enjoying your posts too – great to meet fellow humerers…witterers…joke-telling-people. Awesome, looking forward to getting the link love for the post
Have an awesome vacation when you get that far!
Thanks!
Funny topic and post! I would now like to read a study on perfume choices for the different ages, or, it could be called, Why the heck is Shalimar still for sale?! (Sorry to my grandma who bought me some recently which I promptly returned it).
Oh, I’m with you on that one. There definitely is a group of perfumes out there to which I like to call “old lady perfume.” Ick. Hope I never end up choosing one of those scents. But in the event our sense of smell changes as we get older, I’ll have my granddaughters (if I have any) choose my perfume for me.
One of our Prime Ministers, Benjamin Disraeli, had a wonderful saying to describe the use of statistics to bolster weak arguments, he said: “Lies, damned lies, and statistics”, this saying was popularised by your own Mark Twain.
I wouldn’t dream of arguing with either one of them!
Research comes in handy sometimes though … and we’re totally addicted to our WordPress stats …
Heartened to think that age will become me – even if the whole thing is utterly absurd!
I do enjoy research. Have done a bit of it myself. It just seems some studies are a little pointless. But I suppose if one digs deeper, they all might have some relevance. And yes, I think the elderly won this round.
Interesting that some people think old people smell more than younger. There are certain scents that I associate with my grandparents, and most of them are actually quite pleasant. I don’t remember being repulsed by any of them, even when my maternal grandmother was confined to bed and had to rely on someone else to help her with her bathing and hygiene.
I usually try to avoid reading about studies, though, just for that very fact that it’s mind-boggling that anyone would waste time and money learning certain things. I feel the same way about certain surveys, too, that just state the obvious.
Yes, there are some ridiculous surveys out there such as “What percentage of Americans would like to live on Mars if it was possible?” Really? Who cares?
My grandma smelled good, too. Always like baked goods. Yum!
Yeah, Donald Trump annoys the hell out of me. I don’t think of him very often but when I do it’s as an excrescence on humanity. Blinking..isn’t that a sign of lying?
I think you may be right on the blinking. Hmmm, that says a lot when one’s talking about politics. I wonder how much The Donald blinks when he’s blabbering on about Obama not being born in the US. What a goofball.
Interesting to read old people smell the best since they’ve lost all sense of smell (and taste by then). Oh, what we have to look forward to. I’ll share a funny old people story since I don’t have a study for you. My mom once cooked goulash to take to my grandmother’s house for lunch. As we started eating it, we realized the dish was very, very spicy. Instead of paprika, my mom had used… chili powder! And a lot of it! We tried to eat it because we were hungry but our mouths were burning and we were crying. What about my grandmother? She ate her whole plate as if she was eating paprika. Good for her!
Ha ha! I bet her intestines paid the price later. And perhaps your noses…
I’m a wimp when it comes to spices. It’s mild salsa for me or nothing.
I got to this party late. I didn’t have time to read all the comments. I think the flaw in the study was that eau d’ elderly doesn’t really come from the armpits. They need to fund another study and check the Depends.
Oh, you gave me a good laugh with that one, especially since my husband and I were just commenting on that over dinner (wouldn’t you love to be at our dinner table? For once it wasn’t my sons doing the gross talk…) He said he’s not convinced old people have a more pleasant smell, so I had to break down the study in more detail for him. It was a Seinfeld conversation for sure.
Thanks for stopping by. Nice to see your bald pate again.
ew . . . Donald Trump’s armpit?!? Do you suppose they have comb-overs too?
Ha ha! Mini armpit combovers. Love it! Though I still wouldn’t sniff it.
Ugh.
I’ll go in a completely different direction for a silly study. I have gmail, which runs side ads reflecting an email message’s content. So I opened the message for this post. Among the ads are some for Gillette Body Wash, Hydrogen Sulfide Removal, Fragrances, and Glade Room Spray coupons.
How Term Life Insurance and Monthly Dividends figure into that, I’m not sure….
Can I get a research grant to look into this more deeply?
I think you definitely need to explore that further. Start getting that grant proposal together. I suspect the insurance comes into play at the mention of the elderly, but the hydrogen sulfide removal has me a little nervous.
I made a comment about my sister’s weight gain — she said in response, “You smell like old people!” I was 45. I should forward this to her.
Oh, you most definitely should. Of course, the study’s authors also went on to say that if the sniffers had been told the age group of the armpit pads they were sniffing and then asked to rate their pleasantness, the old group might not have fared as well, such is our prejudice against old people and their smells. In other words, the volunteers would have assumed the old folks must certainly smell worse than the young ‘uns.
I think I saw that study about old people smell go by on Twitter…I was thinking, “What?” Funny post!
Thanks. I was going to tweet about it, but then I thought I could squeeze an entire blog post out of it. Always looking for short cuts, I am.
I think I would give armpit sniffing a miss although it used to amuse me smelling my boy when he was a small baby and had odd smells (like they do).
I recall a study that a university psychologist got funding for back in the nineties. The press picked it up because of the subject matter and had a go at it for seemingly being a waste of money. On the surface he was studying how we move our arms when brushing our teeth. Obvious right? Except he was studying it in the context of how the brain does it, and all the moves it has to work out, all the muscles it has to control and when. Complex stuff, although the papers never thought to check that detail. – No idea what happened with the study, I assume it was published in an applicable psychology journal.
Yes, I could see where a study like that might have some merit, but on the surface, it seems a bit silly. I wonder if there is a higher merit in the blinking study, or if that was just someone with too much time on his or her hands…
I wonder if it was someone who just spotted it then decided to count.
And then it made national news. I even heard about it on CNN. Scary.
It’s sad what gets funded when there are so many worthy causes out there needing financial aid. Mind you, it’s nice to know that I smell better than you do..hehehe
I always assumed you did.
But yes, couldn’t this money be put to better use? By the way, you threw me off with your new Gravitar. But I like it!
hahaha…and is the new look THAT different? I didnt think so….but as long as I don’t look like an old witch, I’m happy.
It’s not that different, but when one only has one image to go by, a change is noticeable.
I guess so. When I posted it on fb, my friends were all freaking out, saying how much younger and better I looked. I’m thinking to myself…”How bad did I look before?” lol
You do look young, but you did in the other one, too.
Awww…thank you!
Girl, you know how I feel about this… Last week I went to our abysmal hospital “library” to skim through journals (not updated since 2004, apparently) for a CME I have to give in August. I looked at the table of contents of EVERY Physiotherapy journal for 5 years and found 3. Count em..THREE…total articles that were in any way useful to me in practice. I skipped directly to the “conclusion” (because the rest is just numbers and GAH!!(Gah!!!) and guess what? Of those 3, count em, THREE articles, the “conclusions” were so wordy and ridiculous that I left that library having learned absofreakinglutely nada. Zilch. Just graphs and bars and wordy footnotes and ZERO useable information for people in practice.
Evidence based medicine. GAH!!
These studies ARE ridiculous. Who DOESN’T know that the less healthy you are and the older you get the more your body chemistry and smells change. That’s why babies smell SO clean and make you wanna snuggle them, and old diabetic alcoholics don’t. Who needed a study to find this out? Gah! As for the blinking thing, I think that’s a psychological sign of something isn’t it? Being a bigoted, hate mongering, closeted jerkoff, or something?
whoa.. wordy. Must be time for a blog.
I’ll take all of your words and more.
Some studies are rubbish, that’s true. But unlike you, I enjoy that “numbers” section full of its p-values and odds ratios and confidence intervals–that’s what helps me decide if the wordy conclusions carry any merit. I didn’t always like those numbers. It was only after I further educated myself to understand them. But remember, you promised to still like me even though you’ve seen this side of me.
And babies do smell wonderful, don’t they? I could sniff a baby’s head all day if it wouldn’t net me a restraining order by the creeped out mother of the random baby I sniffed…
I love you either way, but right not I like you more because if I ever need to read one of these things I’m just going to email it to you with an attached picture of me sobbing.
Sniffing just inferior to their ears is best. I could just gnaaaawwgnawmgnawm!
I’ll keep that post-auricular spot in mind during my next baby sniffing.
Finally! Something to look forward to as I age! Thanks for the 411 on this ‘profound’ study. I feel edified now.
Glad I could impart some knowledge, especially of the absurd variety.
Here’s the funny thing: I saw a Yahoo! article about this subject and immediately thought of you – lol – wondering if I’d see this show up in a blog post and girlie, you did not disappoint!
Ha ha! I’m not sure if I should be flattered or horrified. Personally, I’m flattered, but my publisher might be horrifed as I’m not exactly doing a good job of branding myself as a medical thriller writer. But hey, I did talk about research today, so I guess there’s that…
Thanks for stopping by and making me smile.
I could see putting poison ivy in the trump pit! :+)
I think you might be on to something there.
You’re hilarious! I loved Celebrity Apprentice! Donald Trump is funny, and I actually like him as a business man on the series, not sure what he’s like of course in real life or whatever. Thank you for sharing.
Pink.
I don’t watch The Donald on that show; maybe if I did, he’d bug me less. I’m referring more to his interference in politics, and his refusal to admit Obama was indeed born in the US despite all of the obvious evidence. But I guess I won’t go there since I said I wouldn’t make my blog political. Oops, I guess I just did.
LOLOL.. Ahh.. haha.. yeah, that would be SUPER annoying. Geez. Wow… I didn’t realize how political things can get.. eek!
Pink.
Ah, but they make for such fertile blog posts ;-(
I’ve got one on the back burner about cursing reducing pain and rejection producing pain. See the corrolation? I’ts OK to curse at someone that’s mean to you. It’s PAIN MANAGEMENT =) You could probably get a prescription for it! Oh, I wonder if I could do the research?
Thanks, Carrie. Now where’s that grant application?
I just let a string of curse words fly, and you’re right! My back pain is much better. Who knew that’s all it would take? If you do the research, I’m in.
OMG I read about that study and I thought the same thing! It stinks!
I think you’re just jealous because you didn’t get picked to be one of the sniffers.
As someone who used to do scientific research for a living AND the wife of an evolutionary biologist who works with people who do EXACTLY this type of research, I had to laugh at your description of the ‘p value’. Yes, I used to be obsessed with the almighty ‘pee less than zero point zero five’ (Google my full name and I guarantee you’ll find all sorts of references to esoteric studies of fish and ideal free distributions etc). Thankfully, I don’t care about ‘p values’ any more. However, with three young children ‘pee’ values are still quite relevant…
Well, I do enjoy meself some statistics–what girl doesn’t? I’ve done some research as well and had I not taken this writing detour, I would be on my way to doing research full-time. And you know I’m going to have to google you now.
That’s cool your hubby is an evolutionary biologist. I wonder what he thinks of male frogs with female parts thanks to the hormones in our water…
I really hope that he doesn’t think about male frogs at all. At least when he’s with me…
Ribbit…
Is this you? http://www.zoology.ubc.ca/~grand/
Yep; one and the same!
It’s hard not to have ambivalent feelings about some of this scientific research. While I think it’s great to ‘know more stuff,’ at times, it seems like much of what we’re studying is useless crap–how many times Santorum blinks, how well-endowed is a typical fruitfly, can kitty hold her breath for 10 minutes?
But frankly, it’s so often difficult to know just how knowledge will benefit us in the future. It may be unlikely, but perhaps there’s a future out there dependent on knowing just why kitty is just floating around the tank like that and not moving.
You raise a good point. Perhaps someday when we exhaust all of the earth’s resources and need to inhabit a new planet, only those that blink more than 60 times a minute will be able to survive in the new environment. At least now, thanks to that seemingly useless study, we’ll know Rick Santorum will be able to survive there. Whether we like it or not…
Oh, don’t get me started. I recently read a two-sentence summary of a study that made me go, “Wha…? That can’t be right.”
So I looked up the actual study on the Journal of American Medicine site. Sure enough, the news article had reported the study correctly, but when I delved into the detailed analysis and stripped away the overblown language, their conclusions read something like this: “We didn’t design the study correctly and we didn’t control for any of the known risk factors for this condition and the data points on our trend graph are so few and scattered they’re essentially useless, but here’s the conclusion we pulled out of our (you know where).”
I want to know where they got their funding, ’cause I’d like to get paid to do a completely bogus study, too.
And speaking of things emerging from dark places, one of my personal favourites was the study that determined people fart between 15 and 25 times per day. Apparently the analysis technique included mylar underpants…
Ha ha! Can you imagine participating in that study? I think I recall reading something about it, and I’m sure I rolled my eyes big time.
You’re so right about really needing to read the “fine print” on some of these studies. What were the limitations? Were confounding variables controlled for? And so on and so on. Conclusions can be twisted to fit the analysis if the researchers aren’t careful.
Thanks for stopping by and giving me a good laugh.
Great stuff, as always. Even thinking about what inane project are being funded makes the wheels in my brain start to spin out of control.
So, do you think this study of smells will lead to the creation of Eau De Old People, by Calvin Kline?
Absolutely. I’m sure a cologne with that name would have no trouble selling at all…
Are you still in St. Louis or are you back home? Sounds like the trip was wonderful.
Still here. Tonight is the grande finale. Tomorrow, I fast.
Ha ha! Break out the rice cakes.
I can say with nearly 99.99% certainty when you put 100 old people into close quarters they do not smell good. This is especially true if they aren’t happy to be there and aren’t concerned with personal hygiene.
How do I know this? One of my jobs way back in the dark ages of my youth was nurses aide / housekeeper in an Assisted Living home (not nursing home). There were days when my skin was a pale chartreuse in response to the stench.
Yes, I imagine poor hygiene would throw off the study results completely. I think this study was assuming proper hygiene by all participants.
I bet you have lots of stories to tell from that job. And you’ve written my favorite sentence of the day: “There were days when my skin was a pale chartreuse in response to the stench.”–Loved that line!
Thanks for stopping by.
Well that stinks! Your blog however is very funny!
Thank you! Although, I suspect there are days where one does need to plug his or her nose while reading my blog.
Thanks for stopping by! I appreciate it.
BTW, how is “Story Engineering”? Worth reading? We need to get to be “friends” on GoodReads. I’m never sure how to do that. I just read a bunch of good plotting books on writing craft… trying to figure out which ones to read next.
“Story Engineering” is good, though I think what it has to say could be done in half the pages. I’m taking my sweet time with it–only read a few pages a day as I always have so much else to do. I’m sure you know all about that!
I’m under my own name in Goodreads. Search me out. Or tell me your Goodreads name and I’ll find you.
Thanks for stopping by!
I think most of those studies are bogus. Especially the ones with statistical data. We laugh at all the 91% of people who eat at fast food restaurants 4 times per week or more weigh 75% less than people who eat at fast food restaurants 2 to 4 times per week while holding yo-yos in their hands and balancing plates. They are so ridiculous.
I don’t know–holding yo-yos in your hand while snarfing down two burgers has been shown to reduce weight gain by 0.00003%. The studies are sound.
Carrie, I can say with certainty that I would never smell the armpit pad of anyone…including my high school best friend who wanted to get her period at the same time I did. Apparently, hanging out together all day every day wasn’t enough.
Maybe your high school friend was one of the study’s sniffers. Sounds like it would be right up her alley. Perhaps she’s now involved in a menstrual study and has been lucky enough to sync her cycle with all of the other volunteers.
Let’s hope her goal has finally been achieved