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  • I stopped reading after seeing the 3rd name:

    Jillian Pretzel

    Roya Javid

    Arshad Rather

    by syngrog66
  • any tips on how to get over this. i live with my mom and she has this smell now.
    by dominotw
  • 2-3 times per week shower and lather fully with persimmon extract soap. Plus wash clothes with a “sport”/“activewear” laundry detergent on extra heavy cycle, like Persil Activewear. And yes the soaps and detergents that are effective on nonenal are more expensive.
    by alchemist1e9
  • Is the house clean? Apparently 2-nonenal can build up on surfaces. FWIW my parents house (mom 86, dad 90) doesn't smell like old person, but they keep it so clean (via a dedicated house cleaner that comes in every two weeks) that an engineer could probably work on spacecraft in the living room.
    by trashface
  • Over the course of about a month, this went from being vaguely detectable on my mom to very overpowering (to me). I have a particularly sensitive nose, but now I can be across the room and if she comes over to our house I can smell her by the time I enter the room, even if she's just been let in. It's been about 1 year now and it's just getting stronger.
    by ralusek
  • reminds me of the stories about dogs who can smell cancer - might be worth to do some checkups
    by bflesch
  • > “It’s just a natural byproduct of skin ageing – not dirt, not poor hygiene,” Javid says.

    Did Javid really say this

    by chomp
  • japanese have products and market for these. just eat ginger, turmeric.and coconut oil daily and u will not get this awful smell. also,.avoid pork.
    by anonymous344
  • ++ sauna. and do not live in a moldy apartment / house.
    by anonymous344
  • Interesting, I thought it's just individual perception. Never knew there is actually a chemical compound behind it that affects everyone.
    by sajithdilshan
  • I wonder if we work backward from this smell, from the chemical that causes the smell, would we find some fundamental cause of aging that we could try to develop medicines for?
    by epicureanideal
  • Or the number of years left to live since the onset of the smell, maybe it is telling us other things.
    by genxy
  • I'm allergic to bio washing powders with enzymes, and I typically wash everything at 30c so I've noticed this smell on some of my shirts over the last year or so (I'm 51)

    So far to conquer it I gather the shirts with the smell together and wash them with a bio washing powder at 40c, then wash them straight away at 30c with the non bio, I've noticed a huge reduction in the smell and it doesn't irritate my skin and cause eczema - double bonus!

    They say that persimmon soap is supposed to be good, or anything with tannins in, but I'll stick to my imperial leather.

    by ddmf
  • I guess there's going to be a perfume that breaks down 2-noneal on the market soon.

    Tangentially, in my 20s I was in an audience seating and sat next to an old person. And I smelled a new kind of odor. It was displeasing, but not like body odor. I quickly realized it's an old person smell. It really just makes you think "old person". I assume there's some biological wiring in there.

    by whacked_new
  • Already exists in soap form https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Old_person_smell#In_Japan
    by complex_fir_rea
  • 2-Nonenal was discovered to be the source of "old person smell" 25 years ago and we're still waiting:

    >2-Nonenal Newly Found in Human Body Odor Tends to Increase with Aging [2001]

    From the paper's abstract: "2-Nonenal, an unsaturated aldehyde with an unpleasant greasy and grassy odor, was detected only in older subjects (40 y or older).

    https://www.jidonline.org/article/S0022-202X(15)41198-4/full...

    by bookofjoe
  • As a professional brewer by trade, I did not have it on my bingo card that the culprit behind 'old person smell' would be the same as the compound prevalent in stale beer.
    by nlanier
  • so beer drinkers will smell more?

    every time ive been mainly fasting with smoothies wit alot of watermelon, my skin starts to smell of the green part of watermelon..strongly!

    by anonymous344
  • I think there's probably more going on than that one chemical. For example, if I don't go jogging for a week and then go for a run my shirt later after it dries smells like urine. I looked up why and it's because urea builds up in your skin and is excreted with sweat. Maybe this fact just made me paranoid but I swear that I can smell a urea smell on my skin when I don't exercise regularly.

    I imagine elderly people aren't out sweating regularly.

    by comrade1234
  • Many of them are not in good physical shape which makes washing hard for some of them. Poverty is also a major factor for many elderly people.
    by nephihaha
  • Urea is odorless
    by nkmnz
  • I get exactly the same thing. It crept up on me over the past decade of a life where people commented I had to little to no actual distinctive smell, and alas, now I do. What will really make it come out is if I have 2 or more alcoholic drinks the day/night before. The smell reminds me of a friend/coworker from the '90s who didn't bathe regularly and P U.

    Daily sweaty cardio is more than enough to control it for me as well. But if you can't, deodorants like Lume cover it up and as others have posted and there are soaps that work better on it than others. I occasionally put all my athletic clothing through a hot wash myself because as someone once said on BlueSky, all clothing is washer-safe if you don't care what happens to it.

    by LogicFailsMe
  • https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2-Nonenal

    >2-Nonenal Newly Found in Human Body Odor Tends to Increase with Aging [2001]

    From the paper's abstract: "2-Nonenal, an unsaturated aldehyde with an unpleasant greasy and grassy odor, was detected only in older subjects (40 y or older).

    https://www.jidonline.org/article/S0022-202X(15)41198-4/full...

    The fact that it's been 25 years since the causative chemical with a "unpleasant greasy and grassy odor" was discovered and yet there's still no counteracting substance available is very surprising.

    by bookofjoe
  • The Japanese have been obsessed with it since the study came out and have a variety of treatments (tannins in persimmons and greentea) though none have passed large scale clinical trials :)

    I was fed a YT video about it recently so it must be part of the "moment". Also a topic on menopause blogs from searching.

    https://asayujapan.com/blogs/asayu-blog/persimmon-soap-answe...

    https://miraiclinical.com/pages/why-this-ucla-trained-anti-a...

    by kurthr