The researchers note that this test could be utilized by clinicians who don't have the staff or equipment to conduct more advanced tests.

According to a news release from the University of Florida, researchers have discovered that peanut butter may help detect Alzheimer’s disease.

Jennifer Stamps, a graduate student in the University of Florida McKnight Brain Institute Center for Smell and Taste, realized while working with Dr. Kenneth Mailman, a professor of neurology and health psychology in the University of Florida College of Medicine’s department of neurology, that patients were not tested for their sense of smell.

The capacity to smell is linked with the first cranial nerve and is typically one of the first things to be impacted in cognitive decline.

“Dr. Heilman said, ‘If you can come up with something quick and inexpensive, we can do it,’” Stamps recalled.

She selected peanut because it is a “pure odorant” that is only identified by the olfactory nerve.

To determine a person’s sense of smell using peanut butter, a clinician held a ruler next to a tablespoon of peanut butter and moved the spoon up the ruler until the patient could identify the odor using only one nostril. The same procedure was then performed on the other nostril.

The researchers discovered that patients in the early stages of Alzheimer’s disease had a significant dissimilarity in identifying smell between the left and right nostril – the left nostril was unable to identify the smell until it was an average of 10 centimeters closer to the nose than the right nostril had made the identification in patients with Alzheimer’s disease.

Of the 24 patients examined who had mild cognitive impairment, approximately 10 patients demonstrated a left nostril impairment and 14 patients did not. Mild cognitive impairment sometimes indicates Alzheimer’s disease.

“At the moment, we can use this test to confirm diagnosis,” Stamps posited. “But we plan to study patients with mild cognitive impairment to see if this test might be used to predict which patients are going to get Alzheimer’s disease.”

The researchers note that this test could be utilized by clinicians who don’t have the staff or equipment to conduct more advanced tests.

One of the first places in the brain to be affected in people with Alzheimer’s disease is the front part of the temporal lobe that developed from the smell system, and this part of the brain is associated with creating new memories.

“We see people with all kinds of memory disorders,” Heilman added. “This can become an important part of the evaluation process.”

The study’s findings are described in greater detail in the Journal of the Neurological Sciences.