New research suggests that having Alzheimer’s disease could lead to losing your sense of smell.
The study — conducted by the Mayo Clinic in Rochester Minn. — noticed that a number people who lost their sense of smell would then develop memory problems, and possibly Alzheimer’s disease.
Lead researcher Rosebud Roberts looked at older adults and found that those with the worst smell test scores were 2.2 times more likely to begin having mild memory problems.
“The findings suggest that doing a smell test may help identify elderly, mentally normal people who are likely to progress to develop memory problems or, if they have these problems, to progress to Alzheimer’s dementia,” Roberts said.
His theory is that the progression of dementia causes the parts of the brain that distinguish odors to being to deteriorate.
The report was published online Nov. 16 in JAMA Neurology.
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