Alzheimer's disease is the most common form of dementia, a condition characterized by the progressive decline of mental faculties including memory loss. While certain factors such as stress have been identified as being able to facilitate the onset of the disease, Canadian scientists have instead focused on the signs that would reveal that there is a risk. According to science, the first damage of dementia can occur up to 20 years before it is diagnosed, and one of the indicators is a poor sense of smell. Researchers at McGill University in Quebec analyzed 300 people who were particularly susceptible to contracting the disease because a parent had it. All were subjected to an olfactory test, the purpose of which was to identify the odors presented (bubble-gum, lemon, gasoline, etc.), and 100 of them agreed to undergo regular lumbar punctures in order to measure the protein level present in the cerebrospinal fluid.
And the results are clear:the people who had the hardest time recognizing smells are also those who are most biologically disposed to developing Alzheimer's disease. The author of the study, Marie-Elyse Lafaille-Magnan, specifies:“For more than 30 years, scientists have been exploring the link between memory loss and the poor ability of patients to identify different odors […] This is the first time that it has been shown that the weakening of the sense of smell can be part of the indicators of the onset of the disease as reported by The Independent . How is this explained? The researcher gives her answer:the olfactory bulb and the entorhinal cortex, involved in the mechanisms of olfaction and memory, are among the first areas of the brain affected by dementia. Although the disease does not yet know a cure, the team aims to delay the onset of symptoms by even 5 years, which could help halve their severity. We are hopeful!
