Matchmaking with DNA
With more and more people using dating apps to find partners, a new company in the US is venturing into the matchmaking business by using DNA samples of its customers
11 genes for finding your love
Pheramor, the company based in Houston, analyses DNA from a cheek swab and then uses your social media activity to get matches. From the DNA, they claim to sequence just 11 genes which are responsible for attraction
Sniffing for romance
So what’s the science that Pheramor is talking about? The company says that human beings constantly emit pheromones (smells) which are responsible for attraction. And the DNAs that the company tests affect your pheromone profile
Not just Pheramor, most DNA-related dating services have been based on the same theory “that women are attracted to men based on pheromones, which are genetically controlled through human leukocyte antigen (HLA) type. The theory is that women prefer partners with diverging HLA types to avoid inbreeding,” according to the journal Nature
Do pheromones really exist?
This theory is based on the study ‘The Sweaty T-shirt Experiment’ in which women were asked to smell sweaty T-shirts of men. The study found women were attracted to men who had diverse genetics compared to their own
This is where the science gets dodgy. Experts say that there is no scientific evidence for the existence of pheromone itself. Richard Doty, who studies smell and taste at the University of Pennsylvania told The Wired that “bacteria is the single biggest determinant of body odour”