Is The Peanut Butter Test For Alzheimer’s True

Is There Hope For Alzheimer’s Sufferers

“Excercise is also a major factor,” says Dodel, who recommends dancing in particular. “But tango is better than waltzing. Because at some point you can do the waltz unconsciously, but with Tango you always have to think about complicated steps.” Being overweight, diabetes and vascular diseases are also additional risk factors. Therefore, smoking, alcohol and an unbalanced diet can also increase the risk.

Last but not least, it is important to be in regular contact with other people. Loneliness and social isolation keep the brain idle. “If you can exclude all risk factors, you can reduce your risk by up to 35 percent,” summarizes Dodel.

Does Brain Fog Start In The Nose

One major concern for health officials is that if someone were to inhale something like aluminum dust, it could be transported directly to the brain.

This happens at a rate of two millimeters per hour, which equates to about two inches per day.

And while its true there have been cases where people born without olfactory nerves have developed brain fog the theory does appear to have a lot of circumstantial evidence.

Regardless, one of the earliest confirmed signs of brain fog is a change in a persons ability to smell.

These changes take place in what doctors call the preclinical phase. Meaning, prior to the onset of cognitive decline.

The fact that a loss of smell precedes cognitive decline makes it potentially one of the best ways to catch forgetfulness in the early stages.

For the past several years, researchers have tried to find markers of hidden brain decline within peoples ability to smell.

And typically, these tests are performed utilizing functional MRI. An expensive test with the ability to detect subtle changes in the brain due to brain fog in response to a variety of different scents.

And while this technology is impressive

A group of researchers at the University of Florida have discovered that all you really need is a jar of peanut butter and a ruler.

‘peanut Butter’ Test Can Help Diagnose Alzheimer’s Disease Researchers Find

Date:

University of Florida

Summary:

A dollop of peanut butter and a ruler can be used to confirm a diagnosis of early stage Alzheimer’s disease, researchers have found.

A dollop of peanut butter and a ruler can be used to confirm a diagnosis of early stage Alzheimer’s disease, University of Florida Health researchers have found.

Jennifer Stamps, a graduate student in the UF McKnight Brain Institute Center for Smell and Taste, and her colleagues reported the findings of a small pilot study in the Journal of the Neurological Sciences.

Stamps came up with the idea of using peanut butter to test for smell sensitivity while she was working with Dr. Kenneth Heilman, the James E. Rooks distinguished professor of neurology and health psychology in the UF College of Medicine’s department of neurology.

She noticed while shadowing in Heilman’s clinic that patients were not tested for their sense of smell. The ability to smell is associated with the first cranial nerve and is often one of the first things to be affected in cognitive decline. Stamps also had been working in the laboratory of Linda Bartoshuk, the William P. Bushnell presidentially endowed professor in the College of Dentistry’s department of community dentistry and behavioral sciences and director of human research in the Center for Smell and Taste.

“Dr. Heilman said, ‘If you can come up with something quick and inexpensive, we can do it,'” Stamps said.

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The Peanut Butter Smell Test Detect Alzheimers Early

by Paul Winner | Nov 1, 2016 | Alzheimer’s Disease

Peanut butter may serve a greater purpose than simply being fun to eat the inability to smell it could help detect early-stage Alzheimers. Researchers at the University of Florida conducted a peanut butter smell test on study participants to determine if there is a relationship between loss of smell and early detection of Alzheimers disease. What they discovered is that this test can indeed confirm an early diagnosis of Alzheimers. Here is how it worked:

• Each study participant closed their eyes, mouth and one nostril a pre-set distance before approaching an open jar of peanut butter.

• Once the study participant began to smell the peanut butter while walking towards the jar, the researchers took note of the distance. This same process was repeated for the other nostril.

The researchers discovered that those who had an impaired sense of smell in the left nostril had early-stage Alzheimers. They noted that the participants needed to be an average of 10 centimeters closer to the peanut butter container in order to smell it from their left nostril compared to their right nostril. Dylan Wint, MD, of the Cleveland Clinic Lou Ruvo Center for Brain Health, commented There is a lot of research showing Alzheimer-related brain shrinkage starting on the left side of the brain, which is where the temporal lobe degenerates first.

References:

Peanut Butter Test Is A Quick And Easy Screen For Alzheimer’s

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Popular Science

You may not have heard of “the peanut butter test,” but it could become a fantastically low-cost and non-invasive way to test for Alzheimer’s. After all, what’s less invasive than asking someone to smell some delicious peanut butter?

“The ability to smell is associated with the first cranial nerve and is often one of the first things to be affected in cognitive decline,” reads this release from the University of Florida, researchers from which conducted the experiment.

But with Alzheimer’s patients, the sense of smell is affected in a very particular way: The left nostril is significantly more impaired than the right. Weird! But true.

The experiment involved capping one nostril and measuring the distance at which the patient could detect about a tablespoon of peanut butter. In Alzheimer’s patients, the left nostril was impaired so thoroughly that, on average, it had 10 centimeters less range than the right, in terms of odor detection. That’s specific to Alzheimer’s patients neither control patients nor those with other types of cognitive impairment demonstrated that nostril difference.

This could be a great, inexpensive, early warning system for those with Alzheimer’s the illness is not easy to detect, requiring neurological examination as well as mental, and has to be carried out by a professional. The peanut butter test? Much easier.

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Bonnie Estridge On Life With Alzheimer’s: A New Test For My Illness Sniffing Peanut Butter

Have you heard of the peanut butter test for Alzheimer’s? If you can’t smell it, it could be an early-warning sign of the disease.

I know, it sounds bizarre. When I told my husband about it a few weeks back, I’m fairly sure he didn’t believe me in fact, I began to doubt myself.

As regular readers will know, this is of special interest to me as I have Alzheimer’s, or The A Word. And, from time to time, I get the wrong end of the stick about things I’m told or read, but not this time. It’s true.

I discovered this while looking for ‘loss of sense of smell’ online for the obvious reason that it’s one of the main symptoms of Covid-19. I hadn’t lost my sense of smell but everyone seemed to be talking about little else.

If you can’t smell peanut butter, it could be an early-warning sign of Alzheimer’s, writes BONNIE ESTRIDGE

The nerve that links the nose and brain the olfactory nerve is one of the first things to go when you’re developing my blasted illness. And this is why researchers in Florida decided to develop a ‘sniff test’ to flag up the condition using a dab of peanut butter. There are other smelling nerves, but the scent of peanut butter gets picked up by this one specific nerve only.

They asked volunteers with early Alzheimer’s, mild memory loss and other kinds of dementia to close their eyes and sniff a dab of it, and only the Alzheimer’s group were unable to smell it.

Is Cheese Bad For Your Brain

Cheese. Pizza and cheese are the biggest sources of saturated fat in the American diet. As we mentioned with meat, this saturated fat clogs our brain vessels just like it clogs our heart vessels. Higher saturated fat is linked with inflammation of the brain, higher risk of stroke, and impaired memory.

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How Is The Test Performed

During this test:

• The clinician will ask the person to close their eyes, mouth, and block one of the nostrils with a thumb over the nares.
• A ruler will be kept next to the open nostril as the person breathes normally.
• Then peanut butter will be placed in a small plastic cup up the ruler and will be moved at a time until the person can detect the smell.
• The distance will be recorded.
• The same test will be repeated for the other nostril.

Odor Detection Asymmetry In Alzheimers

For participants with probable AD, the mean odor detection distancebetween the left nostril and the edge of the peanut butter container was significantly less than that of the other groups = 22.28, p< 0.0001). In contrast, the mean detection distance of the right nostril ofthe probable AD patients was not different from the other groups.

An ANOVA confirmed that the mean difference of left minus right nostrilodor detection distance was significantly different between groups = 28.33, p < 0.0001) and that the AD group demonstrated significantlymore asymmetry of odor detection between nostrils than all other groups due to aleft nostril impairment . The mean, standard error of the mean, and 95%Confidence Intervals of the L R nostril odor detection difference for ADwere 12.4 ±0.5, for MCI were1.9 ±1.2, for OD were 4.8 ±1.0, and for OC were 0.0 ±1.4 . The frequency distribution of the L Rnostril odor detection difference of the AD group was also significantlydifferent from the OD group =39.96, p < 0.0001), the OC group = 29.91, p < 0.0001), and even the MCI group = 18.68, p < 0.0001) . No overlap existed between the ADgroup and the other groups.

The mean L R nostril odor detection difference for each groupFrequency distribution of the difference score of the L R nostril detectiondistance for each group

The frequency distribution of the AD group is significantly different from allother groups, Fishers test of the 2, p < 0.0001.

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The Peanut Butter Test: If You Can Smell It You May Not Have Alzheimers

You may not have heard of the peanut butter test, but it could become a fantastically low-cost and non-invasive way to test for Alzheimers. After all, whats less invasive than asking someone to smell some delicious peanut butter? The ability to smell is associated with the first cranial nerve and is often one of the first things to be affected in cognitive decline, reads this release from the University of Florida, researchers from which conducted the experiment. But with Alzheimers patients, the sense of smell is affected in a very particular way: The left nostril is significantly more impaired than the right. Weird! But true. The experiment involved capping one nostril and measuring the distance at which the patient could detect about a tablespoon of peanut butter. In Alzheimers patients, the left nostril was impaired so thoroughly that, on average, it had 10 centimeters less range than the right, in terms of odor detection.

From Smelling To Speech

Testing the sense of smell by identifying and naming odors might also give an early warning sign of progressing to Alzheimerâs disease. Researchers at McGill University in Montreal tested older people thought to be more likely to get Alzheimerâs disease either because a parent or several siblings had been diagnosed with it.

Using a scratch-and-sniff booklet, they associated odor identification to Alzheimerâs disease-related proteins in brain and spinal fluid. The research found that a lessened ability to identify odors was associated with lower thinking and memory skills, older age, and brain shrinkage.

Researcher Marie-Elyse Lafaille-Magnan, a doctoral candidate involved in the study, says odor identification is helpful to study because it involves many parts of the brain.

The Alzheimerâs Association cites promise in other studies identifying possible precursors to Alzheimerâs disease, including:

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Why A Peanut Butter Test For Alzheimer’s Might Be Too Simple

University of Florida researcher Jennifer Stamps administers the peanut butter sniff test to a volunteer. Jesse S. Jones/University of Floridahide caption

toggle caption

University of Florida researcher Jennifer Stamps administers the peanut butter sniff test to a volunteer.

Alzheimer’s disease can be tough to diagnose, especially early on. Doctors can order brain scans and assay spinal fluids. But existing tests are imperfect and some can be invasive.

So you might understand the appeal of an alternative that researchers at the University of Florida in Gainesville tried. They had asked patients to sniff a dab of peanut butter during a routine test of cranial nerve function. Later, the team wondered if it could help them figure of it someone might be in the early stages of Alzheimer’s.

In the test, a patient sniffs a little peanut butter one nostril at a time. The clinicians then measure the distance at which patients can detect the smell.

After administering the test about 100 times, Jennifer Stamps, a graduate student at the University of Florida’s McKnight Brain Institute Center, says that she and her supervisor, neurologist Kenneth Heilman, noticed that patients in the early stages of Alzheimer’s disease weren’t able to smell as well from their left nostril.

There’s some promise there, but also a lot of doubt.

“It would get you into that ballpark of Alzheimer’s versus Lewy body disease, but it wouldn’t help you distinguish between those two,” he says.

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Dementia actually begins when youre younger and takes decades to develop and worsen. Heres the bad news/good news. Eating sugar and refined carbs can cause pre-dementia and dementia. But cutting out the sugar and refined carbs and adding lots of fat can prevent, and even reverse, pre-dementia and early dementia.

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Using A Smell Test To Diagnose Alzheimers Disease

Written By Michael Greger M.D. FACLM on June 6, 2017

Alzheimers disease pathology appears to start in the part of the brain that handles smell before subsequently spreading to additional brain regions and then, ultimately, taking over much of the rest of the brain. This led some to speculate that Alzheimers disease may begin in the nose. Perhaps theres some environmental agent that might enter the brain through some portal in the nostrils?

This is the so-called olfactory vector hypothesis. The anatomy of the nose is well suited for the transfer of things directly into the brain, since the olfactory nerves that stick out into the nose project directly into the brain, bypassing the blood-brain barrier. The nose was actually a major infection route for the polio virus. Public health officials started cauterizing the nasal passages of schoolchildren by spraying caustic chemicals up their noses in an effort to prevent the disease.

An ingenious group of researchers at the University of Florida discovered all we may need is some peanut butter and a ruler.

Does all this sound a bit too good to be true? It may be. A University of Pennsylvania research team was unable to replicate the results. to read their paper. So, at this point, the data are mixed. Ill do another post once more studies are published and we have a better handle on whether its useful or not.

Of course, its better to prevent Alzheimers in the first place. Check out these videos for more information.

Can Peanut Butter Sniff Out Early Signs Of Alzheimer’s

9 October 13

Diagnosing Alzheimer’s disease in its early stages has always been challenging there is no single test that can accurately determine whether a person has Alzheimer’s or some other form of dementia.

But researchers at the University of Florida’s McKnight Brain Institute Center for Smell and Taste believe they may have discovered a simple test that could be used to make a diagnosis of early-stage Alzheimer’s disease and it involves peanut butter.

The front part of the temporal lobe is one of the first areas of the brain to degenerate in people who have Alzheimer’s. That region of the brain is involved in processing smells and forming new memories, and those two skills are among the first to be affected in cases of cognitive decline such as Alzheimer’s disease.

So Jennifer Stamps, a graduate student at the University of Florida, devised a simple way of testing the smell acuity of patients. Her test is based on the fact that people with Alzheimer’s often have more degeneration on the left side of their brain, according to the researchers’ report, published in the Journal of the Neurological Sciences.

Stamps asked people visiting the McKnight clinic to close their eyes and block one nostril, and to tell her when they could smell a small cup of peanut butter the test was then repeated on the opposite side of the nose with that nostril blocked. She used an ordinary ruler to determine how far away the peanut butter was from each nostril when it could be smelled.

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Scientists Say ‘peanut Butter Test’ Detects Brain Fog Better Than Mri

Posted by Brian Bigelow on November 03, 2019

Scientists are now saying that brain fogging may actually start in your nose, more specifically the area of the brain responsible for smell.

This has some experts thinking that the disease itself could be related to some type of environmental agent that ultimately enters the brain through the nose.

This theory is called the olfactory vector hypothesis.

And one of the biggest reasons this theory has gained so much ground is because the nerves associated with the sense of smell, called the olfactory nerves go directly into the brain.

In fact, this is one of the ways the polio virus entered the body during the height of the polio epidemic.