The Daily Mail reports that researchers are using oxytocin nasal spray to treat women with interstitial cystitis, or chronic inflammation of the bladder wall. The trial is based on the observation that breast feeding women (who have naturally raised levels of oxytocin) often have cystitis symptoms reduced. Those behind the trial at the University of Alabama believe [...]
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 [...]
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 [...]
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 [...]
I thought it would be useful to summarise why Oxytocin is attracting so much scientific and media interest. Oxytocin is a hormone, and therefore, a naturally occurring substance produced by the human body. Women have this hormone in their systems to a greater level than men, and it has been found to increase during and after child birth, [...]
A study carried out by the University of Michigan found that caregivers tended to have increased life expectancy. What is interesting about this study is that the results have been interpreted as indicating that the physiological benefits associated with caregiving bring are responsible for the increase and that those physiological benefits are caused by an [...]
The corallation between the reduction of feelings of stress and the raising of oxytocin in the blood stream is seemingly borne out in a new study almost every day. There can be little remaining doubt that oxytocin is the chemical instrument that the body uses when it wants and needs to ‘feel good’. From reduced stress, lowered blood pressure, [...]
