Judge Joe and I speculate on pheromones. Then, Dr. Reilly Coch from Ithaca’s Cayuga Medical Center breaks it down and sets the record straight on pheromones. 

Dr. Coch’s reading list:

The discovery, history and principles of hormones, 1905-2005 https://tinyurl.com/2deba8k8

The first pheromone (bombykol), described in 1959 by Adolf Butenandt, who was also the first person to isolate sex hormones in 1929: https://tinyurl.com/292zp63l

The history of bombykol https://tinyurl.com/27ra3qbw

What if I asked you, or I compelled you to explain something

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you really don't know about?

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This is not a position we often

find ourselves in, but I want you

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to stick with me here for a second.

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So some of you might wing it or try and

bullshit your way through the explanation.

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Most of you would probably just

look it up on your phone and

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say, yep, here's the answer.

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But on this show, we

can't look anything up.

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So we use, or we aspire

to use something like.

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Deductive reasoning or critical inquiry,

and I don't really know how to do those

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things, but there's a lot of speculation

on this show because that's all we've got.

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So me and a guest pretty much

wander aloud to each other

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and try to explain the thing.

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Again, no research is permitted.

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And that's the show.

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So on this episode, judge Joe and

I tackle the subject of pheromones.

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Then expert Dr.

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Re Kotch drops in to let us know if Joe

and I were on target or we were way off.

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But in the end, he directs us

on where to learn more about

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pheromones, and you'll find those

learning links in the episode notes.

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It turns out the medical science is

on the cusp of something truly great.

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Now, I don't know how well you would do

with pheromones, but this is a pretty

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tough subject, so let's give it a shot.

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......

All right, Joe, here's our prompt.

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Pheromones.

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JOE: okay.

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I

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CHRIS: yeah.

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How does that strike you?

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JOE: know the word.

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CHRIS: okay

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JOE: So, and I have an

idea, sense of what it is.

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So I think I can at least speculate.

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I

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CHRIS: I was going to ask

you about your comfort level.

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You know, in this space, do

you have prior knowledge?

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Do you have medical experience?

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Is there anything that could inform this

conversation that you bring to the table

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today?

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JOE: I don't have any real knowledge

about biology other than high school

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biology.

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If,

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CHRIS: or physiology in

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JOE: that's what we're, I think

that's what we're talking about.

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CHRIS: So we have five minutes

to prepare for our speculations.

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We're not allowed to do any

research, can't do any googling,

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no printed word, all of that

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stuff.

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So what we're duty bound

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to just take notes and just kind

of go for it after five minutes.

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JOE: My phone will stay in my pocket.

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Yeah, no research

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CHRIS: it has to.

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We've each been issued a Dixon

Ticonderoga number two pencil.

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So as There's

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no unfair competitive advantage on

either side, if you're ready, I'm ready.

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We'll see you in five

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minutes.

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JOE: right,

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CHRIS: Joe, we're back.

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We're going to speak to pheromones.

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We're going to try to explain

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pheromones as best

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we can.

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JOE: We'll try

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CHRIS: I think

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pheromones are effectively hormones.

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I understand

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them as

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being something

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that's

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generated from the human body.

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that

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they're

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secreted

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JOE: or

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CHRIS: excreted,

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uh, from the body,

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in order to influence or elicit

some kind of behavior, in

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another person or another body.

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Could be an animal, could be

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a person.

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JOE: right?

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CHRIS: And that person

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then receives the pheromones

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or, you know,

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takes them in,

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and then it affects their

behavior in some kind of way.

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JOE: Yeah, I had a similar thought,

but instead of hormones, I immediately

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thought that pheromones are like a scent

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that exude or excrete somehow.

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And that they attract or repel.

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Other,

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Other, people, I guess, if you're, or the

other members of your species, if other

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animals also have pheromones, I guess,

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CHRIS: Yeah.

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I had, I had a couple of thoughts

related to the scent thing, right?

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I think they could be possibly

excreted from the mouth Or in sweat

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or

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in some other vibrational thing.

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Maybe there's an electrical component.

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I don't know.

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Is there a quantum physical component?

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I think quantum physicists would

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say

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absolutely

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JOE: must be.

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CHRIS: there must be.

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JOE: I was, wondering, yeah, about the

process of exuding it or excreting it.

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Where is it from the, is it from our skin?

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Is it from our mouth?

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Is it from our nose?

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Is it in the air that we breathe out?

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Why do I think that, similar to you,

that it's some sort of biological thing

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that exists among people, at least?

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Yeah.

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I don't remember hearing the word

pheromone in biology in high school.

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I don't really, I've never read

it in a scientific article.

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CHRIS: No.

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To me it feels like

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it's been new for, you know,

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it's been a 10

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year

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kind of thing that I've

been hearing about.

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But I don't remember before

the last 10 years having heard

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anything about pheromones.

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JOE: And

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I don't know, but maybe

this is the thing, right?

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We, we both think that

there's, there's some kind of

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excretion.

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Maybe these, pheromones are,

uh, air air bound, right.

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Sort of conveyed through the air somehow,

whether it's in breath or sweat or

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whatever.

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But how are we sensing them through?

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What are we tasting them?

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Are we smelling them?

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Are we seeing them?

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Are we sensing them as like you

said, maybe electrical impulse, like

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chemical or electrical impulses,

what, what organ of ours is it?

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Our nose,

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CHRIS: It could, it could be any of those.

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And I think, um, I'm going to point

to the endocrine system in this, in

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this case.

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I don't really know everything that

it does, but I think that might take

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care of things like hormones, immune

functions, things along those lines.

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But I think the idea is if you

take a pheromone in, In some

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way it changes your behavior and

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you're, you know, so you may have little

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choice

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in the way that you respond to

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JOE: to it.

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. I was trying to think of other terms in

terms of other stimulations, like, is

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it the equivalent of like ultraviolet

light or subsonic sound, like we're,

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we're experiencing it and we are

affected by it, but we don't, our, our

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main, the main part of our brain that

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senses things through smell and sight

and sound, whatever, does not notice it.

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We're, we're, it's like sub or super

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CHRIS: That's right.

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That's right.

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I don't think we can hear them,

and I don't think we can see them.

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I think we might be able to

smell them, we might be able to

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breathe them in, again, or taste

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them.

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JOE: we're not really

tasting them or smelling

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them.

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CHRIS: Not consciously.

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So, this got me thinking

about other related behaviors.

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Um, dogs, they say dogs can smell fear.

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JOE: Right, right, right.

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CHRIS: Or I was thinking of

an octopus strangely enough.

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So if you're underwater with an

octopus and you're giving off a certain

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temp or a temp, we can't really use

that because we're talking about

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pheromones here, but you know, can an

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octopus.

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ingest your pheromones in some

way to get a sense because

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they're highly intelligent, right?

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Maybe that's a thing that they

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use.

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JOE: Do we agree that all

animals have pheromones?

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CHRIS: I don't know.

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JOE: Oh, I think,

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CHRIS: I think

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all living beings with, with organs and,

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you

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know, systems that are relatively

similar, um, can plant sense pheromones?

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I didn't even think about

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any of this.

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JOE: And lizards, maybe?

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Yeah, lizards have skin

and glands and whatnot.

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CHRIS: you think the endocrine system

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is

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JOE: you think the endocrine

system is the source of

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pheromones?

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CHRIS: about what

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system

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JOE: think about what system is,

like where, What, what are the,

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what are the organs of the endocrine

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system?

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Uh, glands?

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Uh,

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CHRIS: I think so.

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Maybe the pancreas?

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Maybe,

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JOE: Okay.

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pituitary?

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CHRIS: Pituitary?

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JOE: Is that a, is that a gland?

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I don't,

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CHRIS: I

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don't know.

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I don't know how that stuff

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works.

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I mean, you know, if you get a waft of

really delicious pheromones, let's say.

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Right?

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What happens?

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Is it out of your control?

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Do you start to

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JOE: start to, you have immediate,

you have associate, you have immediate

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associations, positive and negative to it?

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Scent and sight and all that stuff.

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So these, and we definitely are

thinking of, of pheromones along

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the lines of scent or taste.

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That's

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CHRIS: I, that's, I don't know,

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maybe I

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JOE: it doesn't seem like, no, I

think that's what I was thinking.

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But I did, I did go to like, is it,

maybe it's an electrical impulse.

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Maybe it is not a chemical thing.

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I don't know.

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I, it's, I doubt it.

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Cause the word sounds like hormone.

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Yeah.

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CHRIS: And then the question is how does

a medical profession think about this?

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Is this I don't even

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know

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Is

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this legitimate science?

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Do we think about this stuff?

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Like I don't know if there are any You

know medical issues that kind of come

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about from oh, I've been producing too

many pheromones lately So my doctor

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says I need to dial it back or or

or I'm too sensitive to pheromones

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There's never any discussion about

that because it doesn't seem to have

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any

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bearing on our

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health

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our overall

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health.

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JOE: Right.

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CHRIS: It's sort of like a

bonus way to read somebody...

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JOE: I've never, I've never, I would

never talk to my doctor about anything

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like that at all anyway, but, but

is, , is, is it possible that pheromones

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are,

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Like, so I was thinking where did I,

yeah, where did I learn about this?

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Maybe pheromones.

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I didn't learn about

it in a nature program.

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Maybe I learned about it in like

Etsy, like in an Etsy shop when I was

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shopping for cologne or something.

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And that person sold pheromones

in a Are they bot able?

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Uh, can you,

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CHRIS: I,

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I, I,

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don't

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? JOE: I don't remember

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CHRIS: Um, ideally.

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Yeah.

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Wouldn't that be great to

talk about unfair competitive

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advantage.

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That would be one,

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JOE: love potion or a, or a hate

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CHRIS: Love potion Number nine, maybe

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it's

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all

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pheromones.

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JOE: Maybe, but it might

just be junk science.

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They might, I might,

maybe pheromones don't

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exist.

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CHRIS: I

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think, I think, I

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think

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they've been proven to

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JOE: do you'd

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CHRIS: but I don't know under what

discipline or who studies this stuff.

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. It doesn't really seem to fall

into the, like the healing arts.

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Nobody talks about pheromones

when you're, when you're getting

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acupuncture delivered or something

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JOE: right.

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Or a massage.

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They're not talking about your

endocrine system being off and

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your pheromones are off or.

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CHRIS: Yeah.

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I think it's baked into the cake

and I don't think you can improve.

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I'm just

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guessing pheromone performance,

either in the receiving or delivery.

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JOE: like you said, it's early,

early days for pheromones.

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Maybe we're on the cusp of

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great things with pheromones.

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CHRIS: Yeah.

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So

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that's the question.

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Where do we go from here?

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So I think you and I

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have agreed on a couple things,

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right?

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secretion,

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excretion of some thing.

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I think they're hormones.

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I think they're hormones that

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are

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delivered, physically between two

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beings.

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JOE: Outside, it goes outside the body.

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I think that's sounds good.

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That's a good theory.

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A hormone that leaves our bodies

instead of regulating our bodies, it

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somehow affects other people's bodies.

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CHRIS: are they the only

hormones that can be transmitted?

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JOE: Yeah, I don't know.

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You don't know.

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I actually don't know.

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You could have said hormones.

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I could have speculated on that

Although I believe those exist for sure.

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CHRIS: Yeah, for sure.

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Okay.

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All right.

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So our expert is going to set us straight

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obviously through

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JOE: All right, great.

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CHRIS: I think a few things

are settled business.

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I think we just covered it.

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So let's see how we do.

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REILLY: Chris and Joe were onto

the concept of hormone early on and

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followed it as far as they could...

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CHRIS: this is Dr.

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Riley Koch, an endocrinologist at Cayuga

Medical Center in Ithaca, New York.

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REILLY: If I had one criticism, it

would be that, that the speculators

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were narrowly defining pheromones in

humans when most of the research and

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most of the excitement in the field

is in other species, really across

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all animal kingdoms, including plants.

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a pheromone is a social hormone released

from one member of the species to

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another, or group of members in this

case to influence social behavior.

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And it's important to think about what a

hormone is and how we define a hormone.

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There's a pretty strict definition

of it which is that it's, it's a

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call and a response within a system.

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So in the case of an individual, a

hormone is sent from one part of the

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body to another, where the other

part receives it and sends a message

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back to the originating source.

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In the case of a social, Group, a

pheromone would be sent from one member

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of that group to another to change

the behavior of that individual also

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forming a closed loop in, in that sense.

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So that's how we think about hormones.

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Pheromones are really social hormones

and, and it's important to keep

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that, that definition in mind.

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So really, Chris and Joe

were on the right track here.

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, in the case of endocrine hormones

that happens inside an individual,

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uh, exocrine hormones also exist.

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Both in individuals but a pheromone really

is an exocrine hormone that is released

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from the body into the environment uh,

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to influence social behavior.

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The study of pheromones in

humans is still in its infancy.

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To date, there haven't been any

pheromones discovered in humans that are

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expressed from one individual to another.

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However, the receptors for pheromones

in animals are present in the human

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genome, so it's likely that these exist

and that we just haven't discovered

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the actual social hormone yet.

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Uh, what's interesting for me as an

endocrinologist is that the sense of

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smell and reproduction are linked.

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There is a section of the human DNA

that encodes for, for the sense of smell

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that is also related to reproduction.

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And when there is a failure in this

part of the DNA you get infertility as

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well as the lack of sense of smell..

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So pheromones are likely related

to reproduction in some way.

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JOE: Are they bot able?

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REILLY: Industrial production of

pheromones is a sought after goal in

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humans, but it's already in practice in

other species, uh, primarily agriculture,

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which are used to attract, either pests

or, to attract them or to repel them that

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these pheromones have been well described

and are, currently in wide use.

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In humans, it's a bit more tricky, , the,

the old legend of a love potion number

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nine that is yet to be discovered

there are, of course, urban legends

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about Pheromones and some of these

are being sold as pheromones, even

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though the FDA does not approve

of them for, for that purpose.

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To sum up, from an endocrinologist's

perspective pheromones are really

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exciting hormones inside individuals

are being discovered every year.

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But to imagine that there's a whole

galaxy of pheromones out there that

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we haven't even conceived of yet and

feedback loops that are happening

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among individuals is really exciting.

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The science of pheromones really

is only about 75 years old.

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New hormones are being

discovered year after year,

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and that's what keeps me going.

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Uh, is the

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possibility of discovering a new

hormone, or in this case pheromones.

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My practice is really sustained

by the possibility of discovering

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new endocrine hormones..

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The volatile compounds that could be

released from the body and get sensed

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in the nose that lead to changes in the

brain all encoded in the DNA is, is a

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truly magnificent possibility, something

that is akin to the discovery of the

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universe in, in, in this case but it

is possible with current technology and

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then I think the coming years are going

to be really exciting in this regard.