High-fat diet can ruin your sense of smell!

Stuffing yourself with high-fat foods may not only expand your waistline, it may also cause you to lose your sense of smell, a new study suggests. Florida State University neuroscientists have for the first time demonstrated a solid link between a bad diet and a loss of smell. (Read: High-fat diet during pregnancy linked to offspring's increased weight)

The study led by post-doctoral researcher Nicolas Thiebaud in the lab of Biological Science Professor Debra Ann Fadool found that a high-fat diet is linked to major structural and functional changes in the olfactory system, which gives us our sense of smell. The research was conducted over a six-month period where mice were given a high-fat daily diet, while also being taught to associate between a particular odour and a reward (water). (Read: High fat diet linked to ADHD in children!)

Mice that were fed the high-fat diets were slower to learn the association than the control population. And when researchers introduced a new odour to monitor their adjustment, the mice with the high-fat diets could not rapidly adapt, demonstrating reduced smell capabilities. 'Moreover, when high-fat-reared mice were placed on a diet of control chow during which they returned to normal body weight and blood chemistry, mice still had reduced olfactory capacities,' Fadool said. (Read: High fat diet damages arteries very quickly)

'Mice exposed to high-fat diets only had 50 per cent of the neurons that could operate to encode odour signals,' Fadool added. Researchers will now look at whether exercise could slow down a high-fat diet's impact on smell and whether a high-sugar diet would also yield the same negative results on smell as a high-fat diet. The study is published in the Journal of Neuroscience. (Read: Consuming high-fat diet increases breast cancer risk)

Source: PTI

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