Q:  Pheromonal Triggers & Men

My husband (35 years old) was diagnosed with Bipolar Disorder II w/ anxiety, last September, 2004.  Needless to say, I think he is still trying to find the right neds but in the meanwhile life has literally had it's ups and downs over the past several months.  I noticed that he was cycling around Thanksgiving and Christmas and attributed the stress of the holidays to be the cause.  But for the last two months (no major holidays with family present), I noticed that he's still cycling.  What I have noticed after looking at the calendar, is that he cycling during the week before my period.  I have heard of the phenomenon of women who live together sometimes having the same cycle, but have you ever heard of men being affected by estrogen?  I've been keeping my PMS "moodiness" in extreme check these past two months to make sure that I wasn't the "trigger".   Any information or am I just grasping at straws?!

 

Dear Ms. T -- 
Most interesting as a subject for speculation. I agree:  wouldn't you think that if other women can be affected by pheromonal triggers, that men would too?  However, even though that story of women's cycles becoming entrained (by the way, they entrain to match the cycle of the most socially dominant female, apparently) has been known for several decades, I've never heard anything about men being able to "know" where a woman was by some similar mechanism.  Come to think of it, I've seen considerable research which suggests that females try to keep males from knowing "where they are" in their cycles, so perhaps there is some evidence to the contrary.  Sorry, that's about all the farther I can go with this interesting question. 

Dr. Phelps

Published April 2005