Struggling to distinguish the smell of bubble gum from petrol could be an early sign of dementia
People who can't distinguish between the smell of bubble gum and petrol could be at risk of developing dementia, according to new research.
By the time people start exhibiting the symptoms of Alzheimer's (such as memory loss), it's almost too late – the damage to your brain may have already been happening for decades. That's why so many scientists are trying to find ways to detect the disease at its earliest stage.
But now researchers at the Centre for Studies on Prevention of Alzheimer's Disease at the Douglas Mental Health Research Centre of McGill University believe your sense of small may be a useful marker for early signs of the disease.
The scientists asked 300 people with an average age of 63 who all had a parent with Alzheimer's disease to take multiple choice scratch-and-sniff tests to identify smells such as bubble gum, petrol or lemon. A third of these volunteers had regular lumbar punctures to measure for Alzheimer's related proteins in their spinal fluid.
Those who found it hardest to identify the smells were those who had more biological markers for dementia.
Marie-Elyse Lafaille-Magnan, a doctoral student at the centre said: "This is the first time anyone has been able to show clearly that the loss of the ability to identify smells is correlated with biological markers indicating the advance of the disease. For more than 30 years scientists have been exploring the connection between memory loss and the difficulty patients may have in identifying different odours."
Dr Carol Routledge, director of research at Alzheimer's Research UK cautioned that much larger research studies would be needed to determine how recognising smells is affected by brain changes in dementia and to see if a smell test could be developed for identifying those at risk of developing the condition.
She said: "While an odour detection test may one day support diagnostic approaches like brain scanning and pen and paper tests, this test is not yet able to reliably predict who will go on to experience memory and thinking decline or develop the symptoms of dementia."
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