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Winnifred Cutler, Ph.D.

Founded Athena Institute in 1986

Dr. Winnifred Cutler, B.S. in Psychology cum laude from Ursinus College in 1973, earned her Ph.D. in Biology from the University of Pennsylvania in 1979 followed by postdoctoral work in behavioral endocrinology at Stanford University. In 1985 she co-founded the Women's Wellness Program at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania. She has published over 35 scientific papers, is co-inventor on 5 patents and author of eight books on women's health translated into 7 languages - including her newest book, Hormones and Your Health: The Smart Woman's Guide to Hormonal and Alternative Therapies for Menopause (April 2009) with essential information for women over age 35 to achieve their 'personal-best' health.

As a graduate student with Celso-Ramon Garcia, M.D.

My former mentor, Celso-Ramon Garcia, MD, died Feb. 1, 2004 at the age 82. His many obituaries chronicle his important role early in his career clinically investigating the first oral contraceptive, “The Pill”. Dr. Garcia was an incisive intellect and a peerless surgeon who trained many outstanding gynecologic surgeons. His impact on women's reproductive health was historic. His impact on my path as a scientist was profound. We were coauthors on many research papers and 3 books. In one of them, Menopause: A Guide for Women and the Men Who Love Them, the preface states:

"By 1975, Winnifred Cutler, then a graduate student in biology at the University of Pennsylvania, had completed an intriguing pilot study: it showed possible and striking relationships between the pattern of sexual behavior of young women and their pattern of menstruation;. Since she needed a mentor, her faculty in biology advised her to find a professor in gynecology to supervise her studies. Dr. Celso-Ramon Garcia, Professor of Gynecology, one of the “Fathers” of the oral contraceptive, a scholar and educator,was interested in the pilot work and agreed to become involved in its development. Throughout a seven year tutelage, Dr. Garcia helped Dr. Cutler locate the classic,often forgotten works that had laid the foundation for the development of modern reproductive endocrinology. He listened to her ideas and provided critical feedback that helped to direct and enhance the growth of her work."


December 1985, Dr. Cutler and Dr. Garcia co-founded the Women's Wellness Program at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania

HUPDATE, the newsletter of the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania, p.11 stated:

“FOCUS ON PREVENTION AND WELLNESS-WOMEN'S WELLNESS PROGRAM OPENS"

Hospital staff and invited guests [celebrated] the opening of the Women's Wellness Program on November 4.

Dr. Charles Buck [Executive Director of HUP's Board of Trustees] congratulated the founding directors of the program, Celso-Ramon Garcia, MD and Winnifred Berg Cutler, PhD. ***

Click Here to Enlarge Photo


With the background of having established Philadelphia's first complete family planning service, the area's leading infertility clinic, a well-recognized conservational gynecologic surgical attitude, and a continuing motivation to improve health care of women, Dr. Garcia, medical director, and Dr. Cutler, research director, are organizing the Women's Wellness Program. This program focuses specifically on health concerns of women over the age of 30.***

The colleagues, who have been associated since Cutler first came to Penn as a graduate student, say that they hope to achieve a “dynamic interaction” by wedding research to clinical practice. ***

In addition, a staff of Penn experts and consultants will provide women with comprehensive services that, according to Dr. Cutler, differ from those offered in other centers. Women in the program will have a complete, individual health evaluation twice a year. Dr. Garcia sums up the team's philosophy: “We consider health a birthright. Thus, we aim to provide excellent care; the care that women deserve.”


Groundbreaking Research on Women's Health with her colleague and friend, the late Elizabeth Genovese, M.D.

Dr. Elizabeth Genovese, received her bachelor's degree Phi Beta Kappa from Harvard University, M.D. and MBA degrees from the University of Pennsylvania and was board certified in Internal Medicine.

" Her intellectual output was dazzling and she was an extraordinary colleague. Elizabeth was an astonishing force, a contributor to our work on women's wellness, a scholar, a physician, and a loving mother to her children. I do miss her."

Dr. Genovese co-authored many scientific papers with Dr. Cutler on kyphosis, stress urinary incontinence and sexuality. They wrote, Wellness in Women After 40: The Role of Sex Hormones and Pheormones in 2000., for Current Problems in OB/GYN, Mosby, Inc. (120pp, 250 refs).

Dr. Genovese, with Dr. Cutler, conceptualized a 'program' for overall health, a 'prescription for wellness' to include; an evaluation, health maintenance overview, and methods of incorporating nutritional and exercise habits to ensure well-being.

Research in the 1980's and the Pheromone Discovery


The Washington Post , 11/18/86.

Pheromones Discovered in Humans

"Scientists in Philadelphia have established for the first time that the human body produces pheromones."

Also in 1986, her co-discovery of human pheromones received major news coverage in Time (12/1/86), Newsweek (1/12/87) and a front page story in the Washington Post newspaper, (11/18/86) because it established the first scientific proof that human pheromones affect the relationship between men and women.

"It's remarkable. A very clear pattern has been emerging and it confirms that a woman's optimal reproductive health is a part of a finely tuned system and that a man, on a regular and sustained basis, is an essential part of it," said Cutler, who has led the research effort.

"It wasn't clear until our most recent studies how important male essence really is," she said, "but now that we know this, it helps to explain our earlier findings. You might say that exposure to pheromones is the essence of sex."


Pheromone Discovery -- Media Highlights

Newsweek mastheadNewsweek, 1/12/87

The Chemistry Between People: Are Our Bodies Affected by Another Person’s Scent?

Now two new studies are stirring up the pheromone debate with the boldest claims yet. Researchers at the University of Pennsylvania and the Monell Chemical Senses Center, a nonprofit research institute in Philadelphia, say that people produce underarm pheromones that can influence menstrual cycles.

The studies, done by chemist George Preti and biologist Winnifred B. Cutler, are not the first of their kind, but they are the first ones rigorous enough to be published in a respected scientific journal, Hormones and Behavior.

Cutler's conclusion: " Male essence" contains at least one pheromone that "helps promote reproductive health".
for more details click here

Time masthea
Time Magazine, 12/1/86

Studies find that male pheromones are good for women's health


Last week Philadelphia researchers weighed in with two reports showing that scents, including underarm odors, do indeed affect menstrual cycles. The reports came with a kicker: male scents play a role in maintaining the health of women, particularly the health of the female reproductive system. Researchers at the Monell Chemical Senses Center and the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine have found that women who have sex with men at least once a week are more likely to have normal menstrual cycles, fewer infertility problems and a milder menopause than celibate women and women who have sex rarely or sporadically.

So the researchers were hardly tentative about the meaning of it all. "What we're saying here is that men are really important for women," said Winnifred Cutler, a biologist and specialist in behavioral endocrinology who conducted the study along with Organic Chemist George Preti. "If you look at all the data, the conclusion is compelling. A man or his essence seems essential for an optimally fertile system."

USAToday logoUSA Today, 11/19/86
The Real Chemical Reaction Between the Sexes

Chemicals in men's bodies can cause their female sex partners to be more fertile, have more regular menstrual cycles and milder menopause, landmark research shows. And women who have sex with men at least once a week benefit most from the chemicals, which apparently work through the sense of smell.

"The exciting part is the effect we have on each other. Men are important to women," says Dr. Winnifred B. Cutler of Philadelphia, whose studies show for the first time that chemicals called pheromones exist in humans. Pheromones have long been known to exist in animals, as scents that attract sex partners. Cutler's new studies...show women are affected by pheromones from men and women: for more details click here

 

Dr. Cutler at Monell

While at UPenn and then Stanford University...

A third study Dr. Cutler completed while in graduate school was the first to bear out the conventional wisdom that some women's menstrual cycles are tied to the phases of the moon... all three studies were published. She went on to start the Stanford Menopause Study with Julian Davidson, where she found that regular heterosexual activity increased estrogen levels and reduced or eliminated hot flashes in menopausal women.

Dr. Cutler became a proponent of hormone replacement therapy as a result of her work at Stanford. Her studies of the biomedical research, primarily from Europe, suggested that hormone replacement therapy could prevent or halt osteoporosis, most cardiovascular disease to which women are subject to after menopause, hot flashes and other symptoms of 'the change'.


Athena Pheromone Products: Developed, Tested, and Launched

In 1993 Dr. Cutler formulated, tested and marketed a pheromone cosmetic fragrance additive for women, Athena Pheromone 10:13tm and in 1995, an aftershave additive for men, Athena Pheromone 10Xtm. A Message from Dr. Cutler,

" Athena Pheromone 10:13™ is the cosmetic fragrance additive for women I developed to enhance your sexual attractiveness to men. Based on my pheromone research that began in 1981, I have managed the synthesis of human pheromones into a cosmetic to be added to your favorite fragrance. Pheromones are airborne "messenger substances" that your body emits, triggering responses from men.

Athena Pheromone 10:13™ can enhance the "sexual attractiveness" of women who combine it with a favorite perfume or cologne as directed. Although 10:13 may not work for every woman, used as directed, it should work for most. Science's "gold standard" test of whether a product works is called a double-blind, placebo-controlled study. But 10:13 has two published 8 week studies demonstrating its effectiveness in increasing a women's sexual attractiveness to men.

And Athena Pheromone 10X™ for men has an 8 week double blind published study proving increased attractiveness to women.  I am unaware of any cosmetic that boasts of ONE such double blind, placebo controlled 8 week study proving effectiveness published in a scientific peer reviewed journal. Athena Pheromones have THREE such gold standard published studies."

As a research author; Dr. Cutler's books on women's health
(please click on book titles for more details)

In 2009, after six years of research and writing, Dr. Cutler's most recent book on the hormonal health of women over 35 was published. "Hormones and Your Health: The Smart Woman's Guide to Hormonal and Alternative Therapies for Menopause" (John Wiley & Sons, Inc.) presents state of the art research, exciting medical breakthroughs, and current information on topics such as nutrition, hormone replacement therapy, bone preservation, breast cancer and mammography, and overall health for women and their physicians to help as an essential guide to better health practices.


"Winnifred Cutler's message is clear, precise and correct that women have choices as far as hormone therapy is concerned and they are in charge. "

Alan De Cherney, M.D. Editor in Chief, Fertility and Sterility and branch chief at NIH research


In Menopause: A Guide for Women and Those Who Love Them (Norton) and in Hysterectomy: Before and After (HarperCollins), she helps women experiencing fundamental hormonal and physiological changes take charge of their well-being.

With her mentor, the late Celso Ramon-Garcia, M.D., Dr. Cutler wrote the medical textbook, The Medical Management of Menopause and Premenopause: Their Endocrinologic Basis in 1984, which received very positive journal reviews.

In one of her books, Love Cycles: The Science of Intimacy (Villard/Random House), she chronicles her discovery of human pheromones, and helps readers who are already in a relationship to enjoy greater intimacy and improve their sexual lives.

In Searching for Courtship: The Smart Woman’s Guide to Finding a Good Husband (Villard/Random House), she teaches women how to enjoy the process of finding a good husband starting from the biological basics.

Scientific Presentations, Publications, and Awards Over the Years
(please click on titles for more details)

Outreach and Mission of Athena Institute

  • In June 2000, Athena Institute awarded a $25,000 research grant to Cindy Meston, Ph.D. of the University of Texas at Austin, published in Archives of Sexual Behavior (2004), 'The Effects of Hysterectomy on Sexual Arousal in Women With a History of Benign Uterine Fibroids.'

  • In May 2006, additional grant funding from Athena Institute for the study of sexual deficits in post-hysterectomized women was awarded to Dr. Julia Heiman, Director of Kinsey Institute.

  • In 2006 through 2008, the Athena Institute Hospice Project was launched -- awarding a research grant to local church organizations intended for a collaborative effort by pre-med students, college advisors, and hospice administrators to provide volunteer service to elderly hospice care recipients. This research project complements the guide to applying to medical school which is available for premed students on Athena Institute's website; conceived by Dr. Cutler and written by one of Athena Institute's valuable interns.

  • In June 2011, Athena Institute and Dr. Cutler announced the updated hospice program (originally launched in 2007).The Athena Institute Pre-Med Hospice Volunteer Program is funded through 2014 with a grant from Athena Institute. The program aims to encourage area pre-med students to volunteer services to local hospice patients, with the continuing efforts and enthusiasm of the Rev. Dr. Charles Grant of Bryn Mawr Presbyterian Church and the program's new director, Rev. Graham Robinson. Please read the 2013 graduates' Reflection Essays click here.

  • The Athena Institute continues to offer paid internships to nearby college students in which they learn extensively from Dr. Cutler about the scientific method, office administration, communication skills, and small business operations management.
  • Dr. Cutler is a member of, and has presented her research over the years to: the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, the International Society of Psychoneuroendocrinology, the North American Menopause Society, the American Society for Reproductive Medicine, and the Society for Behavioral Medicine.

  • Dr. Cutler continues to conduct new research at the Athena Institute funded by the sales of her books and cosmetic pheromone products.

 

Related Links:

Philadelphia Study on Athena Pheromone 10X for men
San Francisco State University study on Athena Pheromone 10:13
Boston Study on Postmenopausal women

About the Scientific Process of a double-blind study
Full Bibliography of Dr. Cutler's work

Hysterectomy: Before and After
Menopause: A Guide for Women and Those Who Love Them
More information on health over forty
More information on bone health as we age
More information on Dr. Cutler's pheromone discovery

Please visit our new guide to the medical school admissions process for premeds: Searching For Admission: The Smart PreMed Student's Guide to Applying for Medical School

More about Athena Pheromones and products