A new study indicates that the hormone oxytocin, normally used to facilliate birth and breastfeeding, can help you get over the fact that you're not attracted to damn near everyone around you.
An ABC News report says that oxytocin, which is available for purchase in the form of a nasal spray or injection, helps people develop bonds with strangers and to become more attracted to people they might not otherwise have been attracted to. Are we sure this is a good thing? Won't every guy in the world spray his bottle into a club full of women and then start prowling around? Can relationships survive this medical miracle?
A new study shows that men and women who inhale a whiff of the hormone oxytocin rate strangers as more attractive.
This effect adds to the hormone's known role in human relationships.
One study found that oxytocin levels spike after new mothers look at or
touch their newborns and may help bonding.
No matter their sex or mood, volunteers who received oxytocin rated
male and female strangers as both more attractive and trusting.
Theodoridou's study did not examine how oxytocin could affect
social judgements, but she speculates that the hormone dampens brain
activity in a region involved in processing fearful emotions, called
the amygdala.
Emphasis added. Before you all call up your uncle the shady doctor for a prescription (if you even need one), consider this partial list of side effects:
Impaired uterine blood flow, pelvic hematoma, tetanic uterine contractions, uterine rupture, postpartum hemorrhage.
In other words, completely harmless. Via ABC News.
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