from Florida State University
Our diets may have an impact on a whole range of human functions not traditionally considered when examining obesity. Florida State University neuroscientists found that a high fat diet is linked to major structural and functional changes in the olfactory system, which gives us our sense of smell. For the first time they were able to demonstrate a solid link between a high fat diet and a loss of smell. Laboratory animals fed high fat diets were slower to learn the association between a specific odor and reward, and even when returned to a normal diet they did not recover their sense of smell completely. The next phase of this study is to determine whether a high sugar diet would also have the same negative effect on smell.