From: olivercranglejr@gmail.com   
      
   ' Bill   
      
      
      
      
      
      
   University Of Florida Study: Peanut Butter Sniff Test Could Diagnose   
   Alzheimer's   
   July 27, 2014   
      
   Detecting early stage Alzheimer's disease may be as easy as sniffing a dollop   
   of peanut butter.   
   Researchers at the University of Florida's McKnight Brain Institute Center for   
   Smell and Taste came up with the idea to test smell sensitivity because it can   
   be "one of the first things to be affected in cognitive decline." Also, the   
   ability to smell is    
   associated with the first cranial nerve.   
   Jennifer Stamps, a graduate student at the University of Florida came up with   
   the idea for using peanut butter because it is a "pure odorant" that is only   
   detected by the olfactory nerve and is easy to access.   
   In the study, test subjects sat down with a clinician, 14 grams of peanut   
   butter -- which equals about one tablespoon -- and a metric ruler. The patient   
   closed his or her eyes and mouth and blocked one nostril. The clinician opened   
   the peanut butter    
   container and held the ruler next to the open nostril while the patient   
   breathed normally. The clinician then moved the peanut butter up the ruler one   
   centimeter at a time during the patient's exhale until the person could detect   
   an odor. The distance    
   was recorded and the procedure repeated on the other nostril after a 90-second   
   delay.   
   The clinicians running the test did not know the patients' diagnoses, which   
   were not usually confirmed until weeks after the initial clinical testing.   
   The scientists found that patients in the early stages of Alzheimer's disease   
   had a dramatic difference in detecting odor between the left and right nostril   
   -- the left nostril was impaired and did not detect the smell until it was an   
   average of 10    
   centimeters closer to the nose than the right nostril had made the detection   
   in patients with Alzheimer's disease. This was not the case in patients with   
   other kinds of dementia; instead, these patients had either no differences in   
   odor detection between    
   nostrils or the right nostril was worse at detecting odor than the left one.   
   Of the 24 patients tested who had mild cognitive impairment, which sometimes   
   signals Alzheimer's disease and sometimes turns out to be something else,   
   about 10 patients showed a left nostril impairment and 14 patients did not.   
   The researchers said more    
   studies must be conducted to fully understand the implications.   
   "At the moment, we can use this test to confirm diagnosis," Stamps said. "But   
   we plan to study patients with mild cognitive impairment to see if this test   
   might be used to predict which patients are going to get Alzheimer's disease."   
   [VOA]   
   Comments   
   One Response to "University Of Florida Study: Peanut Butter Sniff Test Could   
   Diagnose Alzheimer's"   
   Bob's Brother on July 27th, 2014 5:48 am   
   That's just nutty.   
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   Written by William · Filed Under FEATURE TOP STORY, Features, News    
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   http://www.northescambia.com/2014/07/university-of-florida-study   
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