A new animal study has revealed the link between a bad diet and a loss of smell for the first time.
Neuroscientists at the Florida State University found that the high-fat diet was linked to major structural and functional changes in the olfactory system, which provides sense of smell in people.
Nicolas Thiebaud, post-doctoral researcher at Florida State University, said that this has opened up a lot of possibilities for obesity research.
The study took a closer look at how people's diet could impact a whole range of human functions that were not traditionally considered when examining the impact of obesity.
For the researchers the results were an opening up a whole new line of research as now they would begin looking 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 research comes at an important time with obesity rates at all-time highs throughout the world. According to the NIH, more than two in three adults in the United States could be considered to be overweight or obese. Additionally, about one-third of children and adolescents ages 6 to 19 are considered to be overweight or obese.
The study is published in the Journal of Neuroscience.
