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   Aromatherapy? Alleviation of pain in women

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Topic: Aromatherapy? Alleviation of pain in women (Read 611 times)

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Aromatherapy? Alleviation of pain in women
« on: Jun 22^nd, 2002, 7:52am »

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Interesting article in this weeks New Scientist:

Sweet smells banish pain

13:14 20 June 02

Exclusive from New Scientist Print Edition

The sweet scent of roses or almonds could take some of the pain out of your stay in hospital. But only if you're a woman.

Serge Marchand and Pierre Arsenault at the University of Québec in Abitibi-Témiscamingue asked 20 men and 20 women to keep their hand immersed in painfully hot water for as long as they could while smelling various odours. When given pleasant aromas such as almond extract to sniff, the women experienced significantly less pain. Foul smells such as vinegar seemed to slightly intensify their pain. However, the pain felt by the men was not affected by the smells.

Both sexes reported feeling happier in the presence of good smells, while bad smells put them in a worse mood. But this effect on the emotions can't be what changed the women's perception of pain. If it was, the men should have responded in the same way.

Women are typically more sensitive to odours than men. But this also can't explain why only women feel the pain-relief benefits, because the women in the study didn't rate the intensity of smells differently from the men.

Pleasant sensations of touch are known to activate an area of the brain's frontal cortex used for taste and smell. So it's possible that smells could be altering the sensory processing of touch, pain and temperature by affecting this part of the brain in women.

More at: Physiology and Behavior (vol 76, p 251)

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Re: Aromatherapy? Alleviation of pain in women
« Reply #1 on: Jun 23^rd, 2002, 6:56pm »