The sex drive of women could be boosted by drugs based on chemicals that are found in the sweat of breast-feeding mothers, a scientist predicted yesterday.

The research, which Martha McClintock, a professor of psychology at the University of Chicago, discussed at the American Society for Reproductive Medicine conference in Washington, established that chemical cues found in the sweat of nursing mothers can raise sexual desire among women, suggesting that extracts could be developed into an aphrodisiac drug.

Professor McClintock, who led the study of libido in women, said: “It could be used for the treatment of disorders of desire . . . For men the major problem is erectile dysfunction, for which there is Viagra, but for women it is a disorder of desire and there isn’t anything as effective.”

In the study, a team from the University of Chicago and the Monell Chemical Senses Centre in Philadelphia used a daily questionnaire about moods and sexual desire that was completed by a group of women who were asked to sniff a pad twice a day that had been scented with sweat from a breast-feeding mother. The women were not told the reason for the research.

The results showed that sexual desire increased by 24 per cent in women with partners, and the number of sexual fantasies increased by 17 per cent in women without partners. In a control group, women without partners reported a 28 per cent decrease in sexual fantasies.

The scientists said it was possible that the effect emerged thousands of years ago in human evolution, when food was scarce. Because pregnancy and lactation require more energy than usual, a chemical cue in the scent of recent mothers may have signalled to other women that it was a good time to breed.

The findings of the research group have been published in the journal Hormones and Behaviour.

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