Trivia: Scents as Signs of Alzheimer's

The sense of smell is one of the first to fail as Alzheimer's disease progresses. Why? The part of the brain that governs the sense of smell is in the same area that is first attacked during the onset of Alzheimer's.

But are there particular smells that people lose the ability to recognize, and which therefore may be early indicators of Alzheimer's? Yes!

Researchers at Columbia University found 10 scents that individuals who develop Alzheimer's disease lose the ability to recognize. These scents are lemon, leather, clove, lilac, menthol, pineapple, soap, strawberry, lavender, and natural gas (meaning the artificial egg-like scent added to this odorless gas). They determined these specific scents by testing 150 patients aged 43 to 85, with varied degrees of memory loss, and gathering results over nine years.

According to the Alzheimer's Association approximately 4.5 million Americans suffer from Alzheimer's disease, and according to the Alzheimer Society of Canada, an estimated 280,000 Canadians over age 65 suffer from it.

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