Oxytocin nasal sprays for shyness: does liquidtrust work?

Pheromone Science Pheromone Theory & Molecules
42

Tisha,

I’m going to do some looking into this, but whether a substance is acting on “outside” receptors or “inside” receptors doesn’t seem to make much of a logical difference to me. They still bind to receptor sites, and still start chain reactions within the body that lead to changes in real biologic functions, that can lead to behavioral changes. Sure, the receptors are different and cause different reactions, depending on their class and sub-class, binding properties and affinities. But so what? That just means that whatever the pheromone receptors turn out to be, they do indeed provide discrete pathways.

In one example of a pheromone androstadienone causes an increase in cortisol production and an associated change in the endocrine balance in the opposite sex. This substance is also implicated in menstrual cycle syncronicity in cohabitating females.

In another example copulins released by nearby females increase testosterone production in males (copulins).

Androstenols are normally internally circulating adrenal hormones, some small amount of which is excreted in sweat.

Androstenone and aldosterone are steroid hormones, and steroid hormones certainly modulate gene expression in target cells in the body. But that doesn’t mean that excreted andostenone and aldosterone effect the target pheromonic recipient in this way… It totally depends on the binding receptors as to what a substance does. The bound receptors do start the chain reaction. You can think of a hormone/pheromone as being a key that fit two or more different locks. What happens next depends on which lock the key is inserted into and which lockbox is opened.

So, as you can see from a few of the examples above, some of “our” pheromones are also hormones that target and act in the body, as does oxytocin. A few alarmist internet reports notwithstanding, I’m open minded about this hormone oxytocin, which is also sometimes excreted from the body, but mostly acts internally in the host that produces it.

There’s been some talk about research into the trace amine-associated receptors which is a receptor sub-class found within the olfactory epithelium as the potential main receptor site for pheromones. But I believe nothing definitive has been done yet. That is why I wanted and am still hoping a few of the chemists/biologists (or biochemists) on the forum will chime in.

But one thing I think is important to keep in mind is that the science behind pheromones is still in its infancy. There are tons and tons of work to be done, yet. And I think is would be good to keep an open mind. And I think it is erroneous to think that a pheromone can only work if it binds to something in your nose. It is a chemical messenger that affect the behavior of someone other than the person emitting it. And that includes oxytocin in my way of looking at it.

Diane

43

Induced labor with Oxytocin/Pitocin just a few days ago! (well technically manually having the head of the baby descend to the cervix is actually what ‘inducing’ labor is, Oxytocin more-so continues uterine contraction from that point onwards).

But anyways, I just want to add that I vouch for everything Tisha just pointed out. It’s very much a hormone, and not pheromone. It’s always dangerous to mess with hormones of any kind without the monitor of a health care physician, and anyone messing with this kind of stuff is what’s going to eventually force the FDA to put regulations on even the current safe stuff (like the pheromones here). I can’t say anything particular about LT though, but I’d assume it’s microscopic amounts that are overshadowed by other pheromones resulting in its effects.

(I hope I’m not like totally coming from left field and off topic, I only read Tisha’s last post from this thread)

44

I’m sorry but your information is wrong. You’re googling theory and experimentals that are still far from general consensus. And certain things you’re completely mixing up. For example, you’re mixing up androstaDIENONE with AndrostENEDIONE (not even a pheromone). And it’s not even cortisol regulated, it’s regulated by ACTH the only way cortisol effects the Zona Reticularis is if you had significant decreases in Cortisol which would send feedback to hypersecrete ACTH to upregulate Pregnenolone (and 17-Hydroxy) before even reaching Androstenedione.

Regardless, I’m not qualified myself (med student) but I recommend asking your physician about certain things rather than putting your trust solely in google.

EDIT: Also, Aldosterone is FAR from being anything even remotely resembling a pheromone. It’s increased in response to lowered blood pressure coming into your kidneys detected by your JG cells and macula densa. It is strictly a hormone, and has no relation to Androstenone in any way, shape or form. Only use you’d have for it is if you wanted to re-absorb sodium back into your kidneys and increase your ECF volume thus increasing your blood pressure and cardiac output.

45

tmoz,

Below is the cortisol study. If you would take the time to go to the med school library and look it up for us, and get the nitty gritty details, I’d really appreciate it. I know you are busy, but it would be good for all of us. I would do it myself, but I have no access to a medical library at the moment.

BTW, gratz on the med school. You have my sympathy! :stuck_out_tongue:

J Neurosci. 2007 Feb 7;27(6):1261-5.
Smelling a single component of male sweat alters levels of cortisol in women.

Wyart C (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/sites/entrez?Db=pubmed&Cmd=Search&Term="Wyart%20C"[Author]&itool=EntrezSystem2.PEntrez.Pubmed.Pubmed_ResultsPanel.Pubmed_DiscoveryPanel.Pubmed_RVAbstractPlus), Webster WW (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/sites/entrez?Db=pubmed&Cmd=Search&Term="Webster%20WW"[Author]&itool=EntrezSystem2.PEntrez.Pubmed.Pubmed_ResultsPanel.Pubmed_DiscoveryPanel.Pubmed_RVAbstractPlus), Chen JH (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/sites/entrez?Db=pubmed&Cmd=Search&Term="Chen%20JH"[Author]&itool=EntrezSystem2.PEntrez.Pubmed.Pubmed_ResultsPanel.Pubmed_DiscoveryPanel.Pubmed_RVAbstractPlus), Wilson SR (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/sites/entrez?Db=pubmed&Cmd=Search&Term="Wilson%20SR"[Author]&itool=EntrezSystem2.PEntrez.Pubmed.Pubmed_ResultsPanel.Pubmed_DiscoveryPanel.Pubmed_RVAbstractPlus), McClary A (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/sites/entrez?Db=pubmed&Cmd=Search&Term="McClary%20A"[Author]&itool=EntrezSystem2.PEntrez.Pubmed.Pubmed_ResultsPanel.Pubmed_DiscoveryPanel.Pubmed_RVAbstractPlus), Khan RM (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/sites/entrez?Db=pubmed&Cmd=Search&Term="Khan%20RM"[Author]&itool=EntrezSystem2.PEntrez.Pubmed.Pubmed_ResultsPanel.Pubmed_DiscoveryPanel.Pubmed_RVAbstractPlus), Sobel N (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/sites/entrez?Db=pubmed&Cmd=Search&Term="Sobel%20N"[Author]&itool=EntrezSystem2.PEntrez.Pubmed.Pubmed_ResultsPanel.Pubmed_DiscoveryPanel.Pubmed_RVAbstractPlus).
Helen Wills Neuroscience Institute, University of California, Berkeley, Berkeley, California 94720, USA. clairon@berkeley.edu
Rodents use chemosignals to alter endocrine balance in conspecifics. Although responses to human sweat suggest a similar mechanism in humans, no particular component of human sweat capable of altering endocrine balance in conspecifics has yet been isolated and identified. Here, we measured salivary levels of the hormone cortisol in women after smelling pure androstadienone (4,16-androstadien-3-one), a molecule present in the sweat of men that has been suggested as a chemosignal in humans. We found that merely smelling androstadienone maintained significantly higher levels of the hormone cortisol in women. These results suggest that, like rodents, humans can influence the hormonal balance of conspecifics through chemosignals. Critically, this study identified a single component of sweat, androstadienone, as capable of exerting such influence. This result points to a potential role for synthetic human chemosignals in clinical applications.
PMID: 17287500 [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE]
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46

Tmoz,

I’ll get back to you with the study. It is in moderator land atm because of JNeuroscience links.

Diane

47

Tmoz,

I’ll get back to you with the study on cortisol. It is in moderator land atm because of JNeuroscience links.

As far as Aldosterone is concerned, I completely misspoke. Thank you for catching that error. And thanks for looking up aldosterone for us. It’s been many years since I took a clinical nephrology class. (What medical school are you attending, btw?)

I meant to say Androsterone. It is my understanding from reading this forum that this is one of the main components in A314, which my husband is currently testing. It is a steroid hormone, as is Androstenone.

Diane

P.S. I have to add, because I really don’t want you making any more “googling” comments at me, that my education is from the University of Washington Medical School, microbiology, genetics, and clinical laboratory medicine. I participated as a researcher in three studies for Dr. Carol Hopkins-Sibly in genetics involving several cloned constructs of wild type and mutant Falciparum malaria-Sarcomyces cerevisea, which I also helped create. These constructs are now used world wide in the study of drug resistent malaria. And though I’ve been out of the field for many years, I still do know the difference between an internet article and a legitimate study.

48

I ordered a bottle of Liquidtrust before I discovered A314. Liquid trust’s order processing sucks. Their product arrived almost a month after the A314, even though I ordered the A314 weeks later.

Anyway, I thought I would mention that I have tried the LiquidTrust product only once so far. I did not notice any effects on others. But I notcied some self effects. I applied the Oxytocin to my wrists and noticed that they had a lingering, slightly unpleasant smell at the application area. When I went to bed, I smelled my wrists to see if the smell was still there and I could still detect it. That night I had unusually vivid and stressful dreams, which I attribute the Oxytocin. I may experiment with this product again but so far the results have only been unpleasant.

49

I think there is a difference between using pheromones for their effects on others’ hormones and directly changing their hormones.

As far as I know, cops and none are normally emitted by fertile people some of the time and the human body is built to encounter fertile, hot young men and women and stay healthy. A chubby guy using nones or a woman over 45 using cops is just mimicking a healthy young person, just like others do with corrective undies, make-up, surgery and the like.

At worst, you could argue that pheros cause undesirable couplings from an evolutionary point of view. But even if so, the pill, welfare, ICSI and whatnot would be far worse culprits. Also if a man in his twenties does not want babies and his soulmate happens to be a woman in her forties, cops can satisfy his physical desires for a fertile smelling woman. Or if you put on lots of weight and your wife is in the mood less often, sure it would be best to lose it, but in the meantime none can keep the sexlife spicy.

Our bodies sometimes make this phero, at other times that. Our natural pheromones already communicate to the brains of other humans. All we do with spray pheros is take control over the kind of messages that are sent.

50

Either way as Diane has mentioned there is alot of research still needed on the effects of mones and there effect on hormone production and I agree we should keep a open mind with in the guidelines of the FDA LOL

The FDA can regulate hormone use but so far they can not do so with pheromone use because it is proven (so far) they work outside the body and do not change a persons hormonal balance. Once they prove otherwise you will need a prescription to get mones. So why do they allow Oxytocin you ask. Because it has a 3 minute life span. By the time you get it its dead and gone.

Copulins only raise a males Testosterone when worn by a women or when visual contact with a female and cops is made.

On its own it does not raise there Testosterone levels.

I think its hard to determine exactly how hormones and pheromones are the same or different until we have more of a understanding of mones and why they do what they do and what internal reactions they consistantly cause and why. Good news is we are moving towards that every day.

So while I think that both sides of the debate have excellent points and that mone research has reached new heights in the last 10 years there is still a far way to go before anyone fully understands it.

You gotta love it though, the possibilites are endless.

Tisha

51

Interesting thoughts, Butterfly. You are probably right about the potential for an uncoupling effect. But at this juncture with so few people using pheromones, I doubt pheromones have a strong evolutionary influence (yet). You could also argue that couples who would benefit and grow from working through their issues in their relationships could get stunted from taking the easy solution of using pheromones instead. But that could be argued either way. (Who cares what makes an environment happy and healthy as long as it it?)

But, Butterfly, I’m not sure I fully agree with your assertion that people using pheromones only ‘mimic’ those that produce it naturally. After just using pheromones for a short period of time I can attest that the self effects are very real. And I can’t help but wonder if chronic use of pheromones might reset the body’s normal balance point in those areas somewhat. Who knows what chronic long term use of pheromones might change? Maybe it would naturally lower the normal output of those pheromones, or maybe stimulate the endogenous production of some of them. We just don’t know the long term effects (yet).

Do you remember when HGH (human growth hormone) first hit the market not all that long ago promising boundless energy and eternal youth? Now we know that long term use of high amounts of HGH past its normal decline in the body causes uneven thickening of bone tissue and other effects. I don’t know if this is still commercially available. But for a while it was very easy to get this stuff at high doses, and yes, it was the real deal. (Caveat here: this was specifically designed to be absorbed directly through the epithelial membranes of the mouth directly into the blood stream.)

But, yeah, I agree that pheromones most likely act very differently on the body when exposed to them outside the body, than they do when they are released (or injected or absorbed) internally. So that’s why -none might make a guy bitchy or irritable or aggressive when he applies too much, but it probably won’t give him hulking big muscles or coronary artery disease or make him fat when he quits applying it.

I think the point for me is that we don’t really even know what the pheromone target/s is/are in humans or how they work. The most promising site, one that was touted all over, the VNR, now looks like it might have been a complete fraud and doesn’t even exist in humans. Some researchers are looking a TAAR as a possibility, but again, not enough research has been done to be even remotely definitive. And now there is this Nerve “O” supposedly discovered by some mysterious unnamed researchers as a possibility but when you try to find any information on this “discovery”, it just is not there to find.

So, we know that pheromones work. We are here testing out known pheromones and potential pheromones and reporting our subjective experiences, right? Some of the known pheromones we use here have been studied in controlled research settings, but many have not been yet.

But we don’t know the complete mechanism for effect of any of these, so we can’t have a complete picture of how or why they work. I’m certain that they are very elegant and specific in their effects, though. That’s how biological systems are.

I just know I’m really hungry for knowledge that the research when it is done will give.

Diane

52

It is exciting, isnt it? :smiley:

Diane

53

It seems to be a fact that I am in possession of oxytocin as I write this – I produce it naturally within my body.

Calling something a drug is what our government does to justify regulating that thing … it is not the case that the government’s classification and nomenclature schema of “things” which it does or does not regulate is rational in any sense. For example, caffeine ~is~ a drug, but in coffee and tea it’s not regulated (remember that politics influences policy .. that party back in Boston surely has something to do with this.)

I produce the hormone melatonin while I sleep, secreting it into my bladder. If I choose to practice Ayurvedic medicine and drink my morning urine, I can get a rockin’ dose of melatonin each morning at no cost (well, no monetary cost) but the government, last I heard, was planning to regulate the sale of melatonin as a nutritional supplement.

This is all rather stupid, IMO.

I would prefer to let everyone self-medicate, recreational drugs included. (“If you cannot teach them to fly, teach them to fall faster.”) All in all, I’d rather have those who are going to be junkies be junkies at the cost of $4 to $8/day than at the cost of $500-$2000/day, the difference going to organized crime… and from there into the re-election campaigns of all who preserve the status quo.

If you want to take heroin, perhaps we make you sign public health waivers and turn in your driver’s license. As long as you’re taking heroin, we (the state) are probably not going to let you have an engineering license, or practice medicine or architecture … maybe not even cosmetology.

If you want to self-medicate with ~any~ drug, we may legitimately require that you take an educational program and pass a test to do so legally, so that you are aware of the known and potential risks – and it would seem to me that if you self-prescibe for a health condition without consulting a doctor to support/monitor/etc. your insurance company shouldn’t have to foot the bill for your bad choices.

Smoking cigarettes in this scenario becomes reframed as self-medicating with nicotine via inhalation. You consume how much alcohol per week for how many years? And now you want our shared-risk group health insurance to pay for your new liver? You have unprotected sex with strangers how often? And now you have AIDS?

All right … that puts it out there in a pretty extreme way. Worth thinking about just how sharp a stick we want to use to prod people to make choices that don’t impose costs on the rest of us, versus how humane it is to punish people for making bad choices … without any consideration of what prompted those bad choices to begin with.

Personally, I don’t want to live in a “nanny state” or a “Father Knows Best” paternalistic nation. Keep your laws out of my bedroom and my recreational substance (alcohol is a LEGAL recreational substance!) cabinet, thank you, I would prefer more freedom and individual responsibility/accountability than less.

I’ve gotten away from my original intent … which is to caution making black and white distinctions between drugs and hormones and pheromones. The USA government will regulate anything it wants to if and when it suits, regardless of classification arguments. Pheromones do AFFECT the function of the body, otherwise, as chemical messengers, they would not be effective, so in that sense, they ARE drugs by the definition given above. Whether they operate inside or outside (by injection, ingestion, inhalation, or topical application) of the body is irrelevant and is a misleading “trap” in this debate.

I’d prefer to frame this issue in terms of individual responsibility (e.g., caffeine in coffee, alcohol in beer, etc.) than in terms of scientific theory (is is a drug or not? hormone? volatile hormone? lipid?) and abstraction. I think we (the phero community) are all better off staying closer to the cosmetic model of the world than the biochemical agent model of the world, yes?

54

Great post, Mark, reps. And yes, I couldn’t agree with you more. We’d be smart to do anything we can to keep regulation of these molecules out of their hands.

Bella

55

Dear Mark,

You sound like our Founding Fathers. What’s the matter with you? Are you unAmerican or something? :smiley:

Diane

56

** I’ll take that as a high compliment. Much obliged, milady.