Scientists investigating oxytocin, a natural hormone that assists childbirth and helps mothers bond with newborn babies, believe it could become a wonder drug for overcoming shyness. Trials have found that oxytocin can reduce anxiety and ease phobias.

Researchers say it could provide a safe answer for millions of people who suffer from shyness without them having to resort to alcohol to overcome the problem. Sixty per cent of Britons say they have suffered from shyness and one in 10 say it impedes their daily life.

Teams of scientists in the US, Europe and Australia are racing to develop commercial forms of the hormone in the hope that it will remove the incentive to drink or take harmful drugs to relieve the problem.

Paul Zak, a professor of neuroscience at California’s Claremont Graduate University said: “Tests have shown that oxytocin reduces anxiety levels in users. It is a hormone that facilitates social contact between people. What’s more, it is a very safe product that does not have any side effects and is not addictive.”

Zak has tested the hormone on hundreds of patients. Its main effect is to curb the instincts of wariness and suspicion that cause anxiety. Produced naturally in the brain, one of oxytocin’s actions includes heightening the feelings of intimacy after sexual intercourse.

Zak said: “We’ve seen that it makes you care about the other person. It also increases your generosity towards that person. That’s why [the hormone] facilitates social interaction.”

In other recent trials, researchers at Zurich University in Switzerland have managed to ease symptoms of extreme shyness in 120 patients by giving them the hormone treatment half an hour before they encountered an awkward situation. Oxytocin spray has also been successfully trialled at the University of New South Wales while researchers in New York found it lessened symptoms of autism, which include agitation.

“Oxytocin does not cure autism, but it does reduce the symptoms,” said Zak. “So there is a reduction of anxiety in autistic patients, and the oxytocin can induce them to do things like make eye contact with other people and look at their faces — something autistic people find hard to do.”

The potential uses of oxytocin could ultimately extend well beyond individual patients and into commercial environments. Restaurants, for instance, could spray a thin mist over customers to put them at ease.

It could be used as a benign form of tear gas, quelling any violent feelings among groups of demonstrators, or even to prevent extramarital affairs.

Scientists who have tested oxytocin on rodents at Emory University in Atlanta discovered that male and female rodents injected with the hormone tended to be more faithful to each other than others.

“Our experiments showed that oxytocin had a role in the forming of bonds in partners,” said Larry Young, a neuroscientist conducting the tests.

“Rodents are not normally monogamous, but in the tests the animals with oxytocin tended to stay more monogamous.”

Times Recommends

• Forces chief faces new battle - the economy
• Seven days that shook the world
• Icelanders wake up and smell ... the fish