I thought Jack Daniels already made a “cuddle chemical.”
A little more from the article:
Oxytocin is a hormone naturally released by pregnant women’s bodies to relax and open the birth canal prior to labour, although both men and women secrete it in small amounts during everyday life. It is also thought to be released after male and female orgasm, and the hormone is currently being investigated as a treatment for a variety of psychiatric conditions including anxiety, schizophrenia and borderline personality disorder.
Today’s news headlines are based on study where one man was given oxytocin to treat social avoidance and behavioural problems. Oxytocin is not currently licensed for this use. It did not improve the man’s social phobia, but it did cause him to become more spontaneously affectionate, and improved all aspects of his sexual function.
As the trial involved only a single patient with a specific condition, it is not known whether the results will apply to other men with similar conditions. Also, without comparing the use of oxytocin with Viagra we cannot tell whether it truly is more effective, as newspapers have claimed. In short, medical trials in more than one person are needed to see whether intranasal oxytocin could be a safe and useful therapy to improve male sexual function.