THE contraceptive pill

If your love seems doomed, blame the Pill | World News | News.com.au

THE contraceptive pill could be driving women to doomed love matches.

Research shows the Pill can influence a woman's choice of man and literally could be making her sniff out the wrong partner.

Couples with similar genes were vulnerable to conception problems, an increased risk of miscarriage and long intervals between pregnancies, the University of Liverpool study found. And passing on a lack of diverse genes to a child could weaken the child's immune system.

But scientists found the Pill could be altering a woman's natural ability to chose a genetically suitable mate through smell. A man's smell can be a clue to his type of major histocompatibility complex (MHC) genes and ability to fight disease.

The Pill is the most popular form of contraception in Australia, accounting for about a third of all birth-control methods used.

Women subconsciously react to a man's smell, tending to be attracted to those with dissimilar genetic make-up to their own in order to optimise the survival of future offspring.

Genes in the MHC family play an important role in the immune system and reproductive success.

Dr Craig Roberts and his team asked 100 women for their preferences from six male body odour samples before and after they started taking the Pill.

"The results showed that the preferences of women who began using the contraceptive pill shifted towards men with genetically similar odours," Dr Roberts said.