Introduction

Women’s olfactory perception varies across the menstrual cycle. The influence of oral contraceptives on this variability remains unclear.

Methods

To further estimate this, we assessed discrimination performance for both body odors and ordinary odorants in 36 women, 18 naturally ovulating, and 18 using oral contraceptives. Each participant was tested once a week over the course of a month, and data was then parsed into menstrual phases.

Results

In naturally ovulating women, at the transition from follicular to luteal phases, there was a decline of 19% (p = 0.003) in olfactory discrimination of body odors but not ordinary odorants. In turn, in women using oral contraceptives, only at a later time of the month, at a point corresponding to the late luteal phase and shift from post-ovulation to pre-menstruation, was there a decline of 20% (p = 0.002) in olfactory discrimination performance. Moreover, when we reorganized the data from women using oral contraceptives in order to separately assess the contraceptive withdrawal period (the few days off pills), we observed a 23% reduction (p = 0.01) in discrimination accuracy of body odors but not ordinary odorants during this time alone.

Conclusions

Women have reduced ability to discriminate body odors during the withdrawal period of oral contraception.

Implications

If women indeed consider men’s body odor in their mate selections, then the oral contraception withdrawal period may not be the best time to make such decisions.

中文翻译：

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女性在口服避孕药戒断期间辨别体味的能力降低。

介绍

女性的嗅觉感知在整个月经周期中有所不同。口服避孕药对这种变异性的影响仍不清楚。

方法

为了进一步估计这一点，我们评估了 36 名女性、18 名自然排卵女性和 18 名使用口服避孕药的女性对体味和普通气味的辨别能力。每个参与者在一个月内每周接受一次测试，然后将数据解析为月经阶段。

结果

在自然排卵的女性中，在从卵泡期到黄体期的过渡期，体味的嗅觉辨别力下降了 19% ( p = 0.003)，但不是普通的气味。反过来，在使用口服避孕药的女性中，仅在当月的晚些时候，在对应于黄体期晚期和从排卵后到月经前转变的时间点，下降了 20% ( p = 0.002)在嗅觉辨别能力方面。此外，当我们重新组织使用口服避孕药的女性的数据以单独评估避孕药的停药期（停药的几天）时，我们观察到体味的识别准确度降低了 23% ( p = 0.01)，但不是普通的气味剂在这段时间里。

结论

在停用口服避孕药期间，女性辨别体味的能力下降。

影响

如果女性在选择伴侣时确实考虑到男性的体味，那么口服避孕药停药期可能不是做出此类决定的最佳时机。