Search icon

Life

15th Nov 2012

Nasal Spray Could Prevent Men From Straying

A new study suggests that a spray, containing the hormone oxytocin, could be the answer to stopping infidelity...

Rebecca McKnight

Looks like infidelity could be a thing of the past as researchers claim to have found a spray that could prevent your other half from straying.

Apparently the spray, which has been nicknamed the “fidelity hormone,” contains a chemical which is said to stop men in relationships from having affairs.

It all comes down to a very important hormone called oxytocin which is naturally produced by the body and is associated with sex, trust and maternal bonding.

For this reason researchers, whose findings were published in The Journal of Neuroscience, believe that it could encourage faithfulness but only in men who are in a relationship.

The spray had no effect on single men, only those who were in a relationship.

During an experiment they gave either the spray or a placebo to a group of men, half of which were in a relationship, to see how they would react to an “attractive” female experimenter.

It turned out that those who had taken the oxytocin spray stayed four to six inches further away from the woman than those who had taken the other dose.

Speaking about the findings of his experiment Dr Reni Hurlemann, from Bonn University in Germany, said: “Because oxytocin is known to increase trust in people we expected men under the influence to allow the female experimenter to come even closer –but the direct opposite happened.”