A study has found that the smell of earwax varies by race.

According to NPR, researchers at the Monell Chemical Senses Center found that cerumen or earwax can contain key information about your body and your environment.

Like Us on Facebook

The team was inspired to learn whether or not ethnic groups have different earwax odors after learning that the same gene controls both a person's underarm odor and the type of earwax they make.

George Preti, the head researcher, said that humans all produce the same odors of earwax regardless of race, but in different amounts.

Preti said that white men have more volatile organic compounds in their earwax than Asian men. In particular, while both groups have 12 odiferous compounds, the earwax from Caucasian men produced more of 11 out of the 12 compounds. As a result, Caucasians gave off stronger earwax odors.

The conclusion was drawn from samples collected form East Asian and Caucasian men. Samples collected from East Asian donors were "consistently drier and colorless" while those of white men were "yellow and sticky in nature."

The study also mentioned that earwax from Africans are wet, and yellowish-brown in color while those of Native Americans were similar to East Asians.

"The difference between [the earwax] is caused by a single gene in the genome. And a change in that single gene gives you different earwax and different underarm odor," explained Preti.  

The mutation in a single gene reportedly appeared about 2,000 generations ago and became more common across Asia over time.

A chemical in the armpits that help bacteria produce body odor is reportedly now absent in most East Asians and nearly all Koreans because they carry this variant of the ABCC11 gene.

Moreover, the study estimated that around 98 percent of Europeans have the smelly-armpit version of the gene, and along with it comes stickier and smellier earwax.