Ever wonder why sometimes a hug is all you need ? You can't explain it , but there's just something comforting about being in your wife's arms after a rough day or giving mom a hug after a long time apart . A new study says the warm feeling in a hug is more than just skin deep . Researchers from the University of California , Berkeley believe that this loving feeling could have anti-aging benefits . Oxytocin , sometimes referred to as the " love hormone " or the " trust hormone , " is responsible for those indescribable feelings we get when we're bonding with a lover or a loved one . Levels of the hormone drop as we age , and evidence suggests that could be a contributing factor to the _ of our bodies as we age . Muscle loss in particular is one of the major side effects of aging , with our bodies losing up to 5 percent of our muscle mass each decade past our 30s . In the study , published in the journal Nature Communications , researchers injected oxytocin into older mice with muscle damage . The older mice had lower levels of the homeone than younger mice initially . But after nine days , the older mice who were given the hormone healed better than those who did not . In fact , their ability to repair muscle damage was up to 80 percent that of the younger mice . The results were not only fast-acting , but provide hope for future uses of the hormone in a variety of anti-aging capacities . " This is good because it demonstrates that extra oxytocin improves aged tissue stem cells without making muscle stem cells divide uncontrollably , " study co-author Wendy Cousins said in a statement . Previous uses of anti-aging molecules have also been associated with higher cancer risk , but researchers are hopeful that oxytocin can be useful in humans without this risk . In the future , researchers of Berkeley say oxytocin could be used to fight other age-related health issues by improving bone health and even being used as an alternative to hormone replacement therapy . Now go out and give someone a hug . According to the passage , oxytocin   _   .
decreases when people get older creates loving feeling on the skin leads to the great loss of muscles can be used in humans without any risk