Grapefruit aroma enhances youthfulness.

• Position: Aging - Brief Article

Expensive creams and cosmetic surgery may not be the answer to recapturing youth, as a study by the Smell & Taste Treatment and Research Foundation, Chicago, indicates that pink grapefruit may do more than traditional cosmetics to help individuals defy the ravages of time. The aroma of pink grapefruit makes a woman appear fives years younger, according to neurologist and lead investigator Alan R. Hirsch.

"Odors can influence perception in a wide variety of domains, from estimation of weight to degree of sexual attractiveness," he says. "Based on this science, we were interested to see if perceived ages can also be affected by a person's scent."

To test this hypothesis, Hirsch and his colleagues had 37 subjects assess models' ages in the presence of grape, cucumber, and pink grapefruit aromas. The researchers found...