Oxytocin Nasal Spray

Many studies have been published recently linking oxytocin to social behaviours such as trust, altruism, and even sexual attractiveness.  Now, researchers at an Israeli university have identified a link between such behaviours and a specific variation in a person’s DNA that acts as a brain receptor for oxytocin.

 The Hebrew University researchers evaluated altruism using a game that included real payoffs. Subjects made decisions regarding a series of social dilemmas concerning the distribution of money for themselves and another player and were rated as either prosocial (looking to maximize joint outcomes), or proself (looking to maximize their individual outcomes). The researchers found that individuals who carried a simple variant (G rather than T) in one DNA letter located in the oxytocin receptor were much more likely to share their endowment with another player and to prefer prosocial outcomes.

 

A new study, published in the current issue of Biological Psychiatry, suggests that Oxytocin may help make it easier for couples to discuss difficult issues. The couples who took part in the Swiss based study were given oxytocin nasal spray or a placebo spray before having a ‘conflict discussion’ in the laboratory.  Those couples who had received the oxytocin were found to communicate more positively and had lower stress levels.

According to Beate Ditzen, the author of the study,

“[Oxytocin] might help us to pronounce the effects of standard treatment, such as cognitive behavioral therapy, by possibly making the benefits of social interaction more accessible to the individual. But it probably will not replace these standard treatments.” 

A new oxytocin study, a new discovery as to the effects of the ‘Love Hormone’ on human behaviour.  A team of British researchers based  have confirmed that a person who has inhaled a whiff of oxytocin will find people more sexually attractive.  According to Angeliki Theodoridou, a psychologist at the University of Bristol, after inhaling oxytocin “we are more likely to see people we don’t know in a more positive light”.

Theodoridou’s team tested 96 men and women in a double-blind placebo-controlled trial. After participants got either a spritz of oxytocin or a placebo, they were asked to rate pictures of 48 men and women for attractiveness and 30 for trustworthiness. Her team also tested for mood.

No matter their sex or mood, volunteers who received oxytocin rated male and female strangers as both more attractive and trusting.

Oxytocin nasal sprays are soon going to be a multi-million dollar industry.  Presently, only one company sells oxytocin sprays as a means of improving trust and sexual attractiveness.  You can click to buy Liquid Trust oxytocin spray here.

According to researchers, spending just 20 seconds a day hugging your partner will be enough to increase the level of oxytocin in your body and help improve the health of your heart!  The psychologist Dr. Karen Grewen claims that..

“greater partner support is linked to higher Oxytocin levels for both men and women. However, the importance of oxytocin and its potentially cardio- protective effects may be greater for women”.

An oxytocin study being carried out at the Stanford University School of Medicine hopes to discover what role, if any, the hormone plays in causing autism.  The importance of oxytocin in forming social bonds is now widely documented.  At this stage, the inference that the ‘trust hormone’ might be lacking or in some way not working effectively in those with autism, is still no more than optimistic speculation.  If the researchers do, however, discover some kind of relationship, it is hoped that at the very least, blood tests could be introduced to enable a more objective and earlier diagnosis, and perhaps even the development of the first effective pharmaceutical treatments for autism.

Where can I buy oxytocin spray?  A question I get asked more and more each day.  The media has been full of articles and news stories recently, detailing the many amazing claims of doctors, academics and researchers over the myriad possibly miraculous benefits of oxytocin.  The ‘cuddle hormone’ oxytocin,  linked primarily with the ‘bonding’ emotions such as trust and affection, has been touted as a possible cure for social anxiety and shyness, relationship and sexual problems, even as a medical treatment for such serious handicaps as autism. 

Yet oxytocin products are still not available on the shelves of your high street pharmacy or drug store.  One reason for this is that it is difficult for oxytocin to enter and then persist in a person’s bloodstream long enough to reach the brain where it can begin to work it’s magic.  Take it in drug form and the enzymes of the digestive system quickly render it ineffective.  Injecting it directly into the bloodstream has been the preferred option thus far when it comes to the medical application of oxytocin, but current research is increasingly focused on developing oxytocin therapeutic products in the form of nasal sprays.  This is simply because it has been found that inhaling oxytocin is the most effective and quickest route for it to take in order to hit the brain.

We probably won’t be seeing oxytocin drugs anytime soon, but we might well be seeing queues forming for oxytocin sprays in the very near future.  With all the media attention over the exciting research findings constantly being made regarding the hormone, there will likely be a coming scramble among pharmaceutical companies to produce and market oxytocin sprays for both the general public and as alternative treatments for what have been up-to-now barely treatable conditions such as autism spectrum disorders.

As I write, there is only one company that has got a head start on all the others and is already actively marketing an oxytocin based spray as a means of improving one’s social and business interactions with other people.  Vero Labs, an American company, are the producers of Liquid Trust Spray, an oxytocin based spray (intended to be worn, not directly inhaled by the user) that is reported to make others more trusting as well as oneself more confident.  I have used Liquid Trust Spray myself and can honestly say that whilst wearing it I have indeed noticed that others are more relaxed and warmer when meeting me for the first time as well as myself being far less inhibited and anxious when talking to strangers (I have suffered from social anxiety most of my life).

If you want to judge for yourself and try the world’s first commercially marketed application of oxytocin then you can buy oxytocin spray – ‘Liquid Trust’ here or via clicking the banner below.  The standard bottle that Vero Labs are selling lasts a good month even if you are using it every day, so you will certainly have enough to give it a fair go.

Any readers of this blog who do, or have already, given Liquid Trust a try, please leave some feeback below as to your experience of using it so that others might form an idea of its effectiveness.

A doctor has warned that social networking sites like Facebook and MySpace are reducing the amount of time that people spend in real face-to-face contact with others, possibly leading to an increase in serious health risks such as cancer or dementia.

Writing in Biologist, the journal of the Institute of Biology, Dr. Aric Sigman references the importance of oxytocin – ‘the cuddle chemical’, in how our bodies and minds respond to social interaction.  Apparently, the hormonal changes (including production of oxytocin) and other chemical reactions going on inside our bodies are less when interacting ‘virtually’ such as on social networking sites or via e-mail.

As readers of this blog will know, the production of oxytocin in the body has been linked to a reduction in stress levels, particularly through it’s relationship to  cortisol, a key stress hormone.  If  less face-to-face contact means less oxytocin, it’s not implausible to speculate that substituting real social interaction for the virtual sort, might indeed be damaging to one’s health.

I wonder if Dr. Sigman would consider communication via webcam might count a little more as ‘real’ social interraction.  Also, what about the many people suffering from social anxiety problems who find too much real interraction to be damagingly stressful? It’s also interesting to note that several years ago, Dr. Sigman apparently also warned that watching television for just a few minutes a day might damage brain cells and lead to dementia.  Nethertheless, the Doctor’s claim, and its wide exposure  in today’s headlines, is another example of how oxytocin is becoming firmly associated with social and physical well-being.

The Times reports today that a passionate kiss releases a surge of oxytocin into the brain, making a lover feel happy, excited or relaxed.  A study at Lafayette College, Pennsylvania found that kissing reduced the levels of cortisal (a stress hormone) in both the male and female participants, raised the levels of oxytocin in the male volunteers, but unexpectedly, not the women.

This was an unexpected result but Hill and her co-researchers believe the fact that the tests were carried out in an unromantic campus health centre also played a part. Over the past year they have run the tests again in a softer setting complete with romantic background music.

I wouldn’t call it unexpected at all.  From what is becoming manifestly clear, oxytocin is a chemical produced by the brain in order to promote long-term bonding.  In an unromantic setting, it would clearly not be in a female’s interest to establish such bonding as a result of a sexual encounter.  Of course, romance doesn’t play such a huge part in the male sexual response, thus it is no surprise that a man’s oxytocin levels can rise even in such an artificial lab style setting.

A study published recently in the Journal of Theoretical Biology warned that women seeking committed males should avoid having sex on the first date.  The reason?  The rush of Oxytocin released into the female brain after sex can trick her into bonding too early with the man, before she has had a chance to weigh up his suitability as a long term mate.

More about the study linking sex, oxytocin and bonding ..

Australian researchers reported this week that moms who breast-feed are nearly four times less likely to neglect their children, than those that don’t.

Dr. Lane Strathearn, an assistant professor of pediatrics at Baylor College of Medicine and Texas Children’s Hospital, explains the role of Oxytocin in the process :

“Oxytocin is a critical hormone produced during breast-feeding that promotes and reinforces maternal behavior. Animal studies have shown that this hormone is critical for the initiation of maternal behaviors in animals. It may be that breast-feeding stimulates oxytocin production in the brain, helping to develop the attachment relationship of the mother and her baby. Or the factors that help shape the development of the oxytocin system in the brain may predispose to successful breast-feeding and nurturance of the baby.”

The possibilities of the artificial application of Oxytocin in helping to reduce child abuse are obvious.