Detection of Alzheimer's Disease with Peanut Butter

Alzheimer Disease


Diagnosing Alzheimer's disease while still in the early stages of the case is not easy to do. Because there is no specific test to determine accurately whether a person has Alzheimer's or not. But researchers claim to find a way to figure it out just with peanut butter.

Alzheimer Research


Detection of Alzheimer's Disease with Peanut Butter
Alzheimer Research : Detection of Alzheimer's Disease with Peanut Butter

Why do researchers use peanut butter? In people with Alzheimer's, the first part of the brain is decreased in the front temporal lobe. This is the part of the brain that is involved in the process of forming memory and smell new.

That is why in Alzheimer's patients, the first cognitive ability, which is seen affected by this disease is difficur lt to process smell, and remember something.

It is used as a handle a student of the University of Florida named Jennifer Stamps to find a simple way to test the sharpness of the sense of smell patients. Tests were done based on the fact that people with Alzheimer's more frequently degenerates (decrease) in the left brain.

Stamps proved it by asking people who visit the clinic McKnight Brain Institute's Center for Smell and Taste, University of Florida, to cover their eyes and close one nostril. Then they were asked whether they could smelt peanut butter, which is presented to them or not.
This test was repeated for a second time by closing the other nostril participants. Stamps also use a ruler to determine how far apart the peanut butter with a nostril so that participants can be detected by the participants.

The result is surprising because patients who were later diagnosed with Alzheimer's has left nostril (which is connected to the left side of the brain) is much more sensitive to the smell of peanut butter instead of the right nostril.

And the participants were later diagnosed with Alzheimer's, the average distance between the peanut butter with his left nostril as of 3.9 inch (10 cm), much closer than the right nostril, before finally they could smell the peanut butter.

This shows how much degeneration (decrease) that occurs in the left brain, because the closer spacing of peanut butter with a nostril, then the more severe brain degeneration.

"That way we can use it to confirm the diagnosis. Yet we still plan on trying out this method in patients with mild cognitive impairment in order to see whether this test can be used to predict which patients are affected by Alzheimer's," said Stamps, as reported by LiveScience page.

According to professor of neurology at the University of Florida who also helps Stamps found this simple method, Dr. Kenneth M. Heilman, tests using the peanut butter could be used by the clinics are not equipped with advanced medical equipment such as MRI scans or CT scans are often used to determine the presence or absence of symptoms of Alzheimer's disease in a person.

"This could be an important part in the evaluation process of patients," he concluded.


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