Some people are sickened by pork saying it smells like sweat, urine or even faeces, and scientists say this could be genetic.
Previous research has found people who pick up a strange scent from pork, called androstenone, or "pork taint", have two copies of gene OR7D4.
The latest study, published
in PLoS ONE, asked 23 people - 13 consumers and 10 professional sensory assessors - to smell samples from three bottles. One had androstenone and the other two had water. They were asked to pick the strongest smelling bottle, Medical Daily reported. A dozen sensitive and 11 non-sensitive participants were picked.
They were asked to sniff pork samples with different levels of androstenone. They found people who had two copies of OR7D4 picked up a bad smell from the pork, confirming the earlier conclusions.
In New Zealand, America and Europe pigs are castrated - meaning the concentration of androstenone is quite low, said Hiroaki Matsunami, associate professor of molecular genetics and microbiology at Duke University Medical Centre, and the study's co-author.
