One's Sense of Smell

 According to the BBC, it is possible that smell can predict one's overall health...

Several initiatives are now developing tests which could use smell to help diagnose neurodegenerative diseases.

Predict-PD is one such initiative. According to Alastair Noyce, a clinical senior lecturer at Queen Mary University of London, who leads the project, it has developed a smell test called Scratch and Sniff. This is a quick test that presents six smells to the patient that we commonly encounter throughout the day, based off a larger roster of 40 odours.

The hope is the data they collect could be used to predict who is going to develop Parkinson's, which might lead to new early treatments that could prevent the disease from progressing or slow it down. And with up to 0.45-3.4% of individuals (depending on the test) apparently unaware of their own smell loss, tools such as Predict-PD could help people to identify it.

The catch is that such tests are currently expensive. "The standard smell test costs on average £25 [$34.88] to undertake but only a few pence to produce," says Noyce. Whilst cost may not be a barrier for the many private clinics that are using smell tests as a tool for diagnosis, it would limit its usefulness for public healthcare systems with limited resources.

Of course, smell impairment does not only develop as a result of neurodegenerative diseases. Around 19% of the population have some sort of olfactory dysfunction, with 0.3% losing their sense of smell entirely (anosmia) and 19.1% suffering from reduced ability to detect odours (hyposomia). Recent studies have found that smell loss may be linked to mental health conditions such as depression, schizophrenia and dystonia, a movement disorder in which a person's muscles contract uncontrollably.  TO READ ENTIRE ARTICLE, Click Here...