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Tag Archives: smell
Sulfur smell Indiana: BP Whiting refinery disruption triggers unplanned flaring as NW Indiana residents report odor – WLS-TV
- Sulfur smell Indiana: BP Whiting refinery disruption triggers unplanned flaring as NW Indiana residents report odor WLS-TV
- 911 dispatchers receive ‘high volume’ of calls after unusual smell reported across NW Indiana NBC Chicago
- Portage police say they’ve gotten ‘hundreds’ of 911 calls about strange smell in Northwest Indiana FOX 32 Chicago
- Porter County Emergency Management blames storms for natural gas leak at Whiting BP refinery WSBT-TV
- Portage, Indiana, other officials urge residents to stop calling 911 over sulfur smell; NIPSCO investigating WLS-TV
- View Full Coverage on Google News
Millions of patients do not have full recovery of smell or taste senses after COVID infection, study finds – Medical Xpress
- Millions of patients do not have full recovery of smell or taste senses after COVID infection, study finds Medical Xpress
- One in Four COVID-19 Patients Struggle to Regain Sense of Taste and Smell Neuroscience News
- Millions of COVID patients still don’t have their sense of smell or taste, Mass Eye and Ear study finds Boston Herald
- Millions who had COVID still lack sense of taste or smell, study finds The Seattle Times
- Many adults infected with COVID-19 report only partial or no recovery of taste or smell News-Medical.Net
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Ants’ sense of smell is so strong, they can sniff out cancer
A study published this week in the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences highlights a keen ant sense and underscores how someday we may use sharp-nosed animals — or, in the case of ants, sharp-antennaed — to detect tumors quickly and cheaply. That’s important because the sooner that cancer is found, the better the chances of recovery.
“The results are very promising,” said Baptiste Piqueret, a postdoctoral fellow at the Max Planck Institute for Chemical Ecology in Germany who studies animal behavior and co-wrote the paper. He added, however: “It’s important to know that we are far from using them as a daily way to detect cancer.”
Stretching out their pair of thin sensory appendages atop their heads, the insects detect and deploy chemical cues to do almost everything — find food, swarm prey, spot colony mates, protect young. This chemical communication helps ants construct complex societies of queens and workers that operate so in sync with scent that scientists dub some colonies “superorganisms.”
For his study, Piqueret’s team grafted pieces of a human breast-cancer tumor onto mice and trained 35 ants to associate urine from the tumor-bearing rodents with sugar. Placed in a petri dish, the silky ants (Formica fusca) spent significantly more time near tubes with urine from the “sick” mice compared with urine from healthy ones.
“The study was well conceived and conducted,” said Federica Pirrone, an associate professor at the University of Milan who was not involved in the ant research but has conducted similar investigations into the smelling ability of dogs.
Piqueret has been fascinated by ants ever since playing with them as a child in his parents’ garden in the French countryside. “I’ve always loved ants,” he said, “looking at them, playing with them.”
The way we diagnose cancer today — by drawing blood, taking biopsies and conducting colonoscopies — is often expensive and invasive. Animal behaviorists are imagining a world in which doctors one day tap species with keen senses to help spot tumors quickly and cheaply.
Dogs can sniff out the presence of cancer in body odor, past research has shown. Mice can be trained to discriminate between healthy and tumor-bearing compatriots. Nematodes are attracted to certain organic compounds associated with cancer. Even the neurons of fruit flies fire in the presence of certain cancerous cells.
But ants, Piqueret suggested, may have the edge over dogs and other animals that are time-consuming to train.
During covid lockdowns, he brought silky ants into his apartment outside Paris to continue his experiments. He chose the species because it has a good memory, is easy to train and doesn’t bite (at least not hard, Piqueret said).
Researchers have to do a lot more work before ants or other animals help make an actual diagnosis. Scientists need to test for confounding factors such as diet or age, Pirrone said. Piqueret’s team plans to test ants’ ability to sniff out the markers of cancer in urine from actual patients.
“To have real confirmations, we need to wait for the next steps,” Pirrone said.
If ants are ever used in cancer screening, Piqueret wants to make one thing clear: No, they will not need to crawl on you.
“There will be no direct contact between ants and patients,” he said. “So even if people are afraid of insects, it’s fine.”
He once had to reassure someone aware of his research that the ants that swarmed a picnic were not a sign of cancer.
“The ants were not trained,” he said. “They just want to eat sugar.”
5 Signs of Dementia You’ll Smell First, Doctors Say
If the smell of crisp apple strudels is also one of your favorite things, you might struggle to recognize it in the years leading up to a dementia diagnosis. A change in your smell memory is a common symptom of cognitive disease, according to Trinh. This may manifest as “difficulty in recognizing familiar smells, such as not being able to recall the smell of a favorite dish or perfume,” he explains.
Scents may get distorted as a result, causing you to perceive familiar them “as different or unfamiliar,” says Danny Dorsey, a mental health expert and founder of the health treatment facility Everlast Recovery Center. You might also develop an “inability to smell common scents like peppermint and orange” altogether, adds Manisha Parulekar, MD, the division chief for geriatrics at Hackensack University Medical Center in New Jersey.
Scientists find potential cure for COVID-related loss of smell
If a lost ability to smell after a COVID-19 infection has sapped some of the color from your world, relief might be on the way. (Stephanie Amador, Associated Press)
Estimated read time: 4-5 minutes
TORONTO — A team of researchers in California struck upon a possible cure for long-term COVID-19-related smell loss that uses a blood product from patients’ own bodies.
In a randomized, controlled trial of 26 patients who had lost their sense of smell following a COVID-19 infection, half received nasal injections of platelet-rich plasma derived from their own blood, while the rest received a placebo.
The study’s authors, researchers from the University of California and Stanford University, found that those who received the treatment were 12.5 times more likely to improve than patients who received placebo injections. The results were published Dec. 12 in the International Forum of Allergy and Rhinology.
Dr. Zara Patel, one of the authors and a professor of otolaryngology at Stanford Medicine, has studied loss of smell as a symptom of viral infections for years.
“Many viruses can cause smell loss, so it wasn’t surprising to us as rhinologists when we found out that COVID-19 causes loss of smell and taste,” she said in a media release published on Monday. “It was almost expected.”
Patel knew the condition could last for months, that it was related to nerve damage and that few effective treatments were available. She also knew platelet-rich plasma has been promoted as a treatment for other nerve-related ailments such as carpal tunnel syndrome.
Platelet-rich plasma is a concentrated form of plasma — the liquid portion of blood — minus blood cells and other blood components. It’s rich in platelets and growth factors, which are compounds known to help regenerate tissue. Platelet-rich plasma injections have been tested as a treatment for mild arthritis, wrinkles and hair loss.
According to Patel’s research, COVID-19-related smell loss is a neurological problem in which the virus prevents nerves deep in the nasal cavity from regenerating correctly, even after an infection has subsided. These nerves connect to the brain and normally regenerate every three to four months.
“It’s a nerve damage and nerve regeneration issue that we’re dealing with,” Patel said.
Patel had already completed a small pilot study demonstrating the safety of platelet-rich plasma injections in the nasal cavity when the pandemic hit, so it was natural to pivot her plans for a larger trial to focus specifically on COVID-19-related smell loss.
According to her research, SARS-CoV-2 doesn’t target nerve cells directly. Instead, it attacks supporting cells known as sustentacular cells, which have the ACE-2 receptor the virus uses to infect cells. These cells play a role in correct nerve regeneration, so persistent inflammation and damage to these cells may lead to long-term loss of function.
Patel’s hope was that by injecting platelet-rich plasma into the site of her subjects’ nasal nerve damage, she could promote the regeneration of those nerves required for smell and taste.
Patients who had suffered from a persistent loss of smell lasting between six and 12 months were given injections — either of platelet-rich plasma or sterile saline — every two weeks for six weeks. They were then tested on their ability to detect and identify a range of odors for three months afterward.
Three months after their first injection, 57% of the platelet-rich plasma group had shown significant improvement, compared with just 8.3% in the placebo group. Everyone recruited for the study had previously tried other treatments – such as olfactory training and steroid rinse – with no success.
Following the success of the experiment, Patel now offers nasal platelet-rich plasma injections to patients outside of the trial.
A survey Patel conducted with colleagues from California and the United Kingdom in 2022 revealed that about 15% of people who experienced smell loss from COVID-19 — or nine million Americans — continued to have problems for at least six months.
“People tell me all the time that they never realized how important their sense of smell and taste was to them and their quality of life until they lost it,” she said. “People say, ‘My life has gone gray.'”
Patel hopes therapies like platelet-rich plasma injection will help more of these people regain their sense of smell.
“Our olfactory systems can be resilient,” she said. “But the sooner you perform some sort of definitive intervention, probably the better chance you have of improvement.”
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A simple smell test may help reveal signs of unhealthy aging and frailty
BALTIMORE — A simple smell test could help doctors screen older adults for signs of frailty and unhealthy aging. Researchers from Johns Hopkins demonstrated that the loss of smell may be predictive of a higher risk for age-related health problems.
So far, studies have shown that smell dysfunction acts as an early indicator of cognitive decline, but these findings expand on this concept and show that the link to frailty is both in the brain and the nose. For this study, researchers assessed olfactory sensitivity and olfactory identification, which describe the ability to detect an odor and the ability to detect and name an odor, respectively.
“We use our sense of smell to identify the threat of a fire or to enjoy the fragrance of flowers on a spring day. But just like vision and hearing, this sense weakens as we age,” says corresponding author Nicholas Rowan, M.D., associate professor of otolaryngology – head and neck surgery, in a university release. “We found that both impaired olfactory identification and sensitivity functions are associated with frailty, which is interesting because it shows that it’s not just your aging brain at work here, but it may also be something peripheral, like something at the level of your nose that is able to predict our impending frailty and death.”
Better smelling skills linked to better overall health
Rowan and the team analyzed data on 1,160 older adults enrolled in the National Social Life, Health and Aging Project between 2015 and 2016. Study participants were exposed to five scents to measure identification skills and six scents to measure sensitivity. The team then matched these results to their frailty score.
They determined that for each one-point increase in both olfactory identification and sensitivity scores, frailty status declined significantly, which suggests that the ability to smell well has a connection to better overall health in the aging population. From this, the team can deduce that keeping an eye on sense of smell may serve as an influential biomarker and risk factor for frailty.
Rowan believes that this work contributes to growing evidence in favor of using smell tests as an integral part to clinical care for aging people that may be cognitively impaired.
“We already do tests to assess how well we can see or hear, and it’s just as easy to conduct a simple smell test that takes only minutes, which could potentially be used as a valuable tool to assess the risk of frailty or unhealthy aging,” says Rowan. “For example, if someone flunks a smell test then maybe this patient needs to improve their nutrition or undergo a more detailed neurological or medical workup.”
The Hopkins team is already looking into the use of smell tests and how they can enhance clinical and research efforts in improving care for older adults, especially with COVID-19 affecting the smell of many patients around the world.
The findings are published in the Journal of Gerontology.
Ancient humans had same sense of smell, but different sensitivities
If you had the grooming habits of a Neanderthal, perhaps it’s a good thing your nose wasn’t as sensitive to urine and sweat as a modern human’s.
And if you lived the hunting and gathering lifestyle of a Denisovan on the Asian steppes, your strong nose for energy-rich honey was almost certainly an advantage.
Though we can’t really know what these two extinct human species perceived or preferred to eat, a new study from Duke University scientists has figured out a bit more about what they might have been able to smell.
Using a technique they developed that allows researchers to test smell sensitivity on odor receptors grown in a lab dish, researchers Claire de March of CNRS Paris Saclay University and Hiroaki Matsunami of Duke University were able to compare the scents-abilities of three kinds of humans. Their work appeared Dec. 28 in the open access journal iScience.
Drawing from published databases of genomes, including ancient DNA collections amassed by 2022 Nobel Prize winner Svante Pääbo, the researchers were able to characterize the receptors of each of the three human species by looking at the relevant genes.
“It is very difficult to predict a behavior just from the genomic sequence,” said de March, who performed this work as a postdoctoral research associate at Duke. “We had the odorant receptor genomes from Neanderthal and Denisovan individuals and we could compare them with today’s humans and determine if they resulted in a different protein.”
So then they tested the responses of 30 lab-grown olfactory receptors from each hominin against a battery of smells to measure how sensitive each kind of receptor was to a particular fragrance.
The laboratory tests showed the modern and ancient human receptors were essentially detecting the same odors, but their sensitivities differed.
The Denisovans, who lived 30,000 to 50,000 years ago, were shown to be less sensitive to the odors that present-day humans perceive as floral, but four times better at sensing sulfur and three times better at balsamic. And they were very attuned to honey.
“We don’t know what Denisovans ate, but there some reasons why this receptor has to be sensitive,” said Matsunami, who is a professor of molecular genetics and microbiology in the Duke School of Medicine. Contemporary hunter-gatherers such as the Hadza of Tanzania are famous for their love of honey, an essential high-calorie fuel.
Neanderthals, who were still around up to 40,000 years ago and who apparently swapped a few genes with modern humans, were three times less responsive to green, floral and spicy scents, using pretty much the same receptors we have today. “They may exhibit different sensitivity, but the selectivity remains the same,” Matsunami said.
“The Neanderthal odorant receptors are mostly the same as contemporary humans, and the few that were different were no more responsive,” de March added.
Odor receptors have been linked to ecological and dietary needs in many species and presumably evolve as a species changes ranges and diets.
“Each species must evolve olfactory receptors to maximize their fitness for finding food,” Matsunami said. “In humans, it’s more complicated because we eat a lot of things. We’re not really specialized.”
The lab has also used their cell-based scent tester for seeing genetic variation among modern humans. “Some people can smell certain chemicals, but others can’t,” Matsunami said. “That can be explained by functional changes.”
More information:
Claire A. de March et al, Genetic and functional odorant receptor variation in the Homo lineage, iScience (2022). DOI: 10.1016/j.isci.2022.105908
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Ways to Regain Sense of Smell After COVID
Among the many aftereffects of COVID-19 infection, one that has garnered much attention is the loss of smell or taste. For many people, the condition is long-term and treatment remains elusive.
Why does this happen to some people and are there effective treatments available to restore our sense of smell after COVID?
Loss of Smell Is Common With Many Viral Infections
Our sense of taste and smell work together to help us enjoy food and drink. The loss of these senses can make meals seem tasteless or bland. More importantly, we may not recognize potentially dangerous situations like a gas leak or spoiled food.
Losing taste (ageusia) and smell (anosmia) is not only an early symptom of COVID-19 infection—it’s also a well-known symptom of long COVID.
However, the condition isn’t unique to COVID.
“Loss of smell is common with numerous viral infections, and especially so in COVID. In about 95 percent, smell has returned by 6 months,” Jacob Teitelbaum, M.D., a board-certified internist and nationally known expert in the fields of chronic fatigue syndrome, fibromyalgia, sleep, and pain, told The Epoch Times.
In a study from New York University, researchers found that the presence of COVID virus near nerve cells in olfactory tissue stimulated an inrush of immune cells, like microglia and T cells to counter the infection.
These cells release proteins called cytokines that change genetic activity in olfactory cells, even though the virus couldn’t infect them. In other scenarios, immune cell activity dissipates quickly; but researchers theorize that COVID-related immune signaling persists in a way that impairs the activity of genes needed to build smell receptors.
Other research found why, for some people, the loss is potentially permanent.
Scientists at Duke University, with experts from Harvard University and the University of California San Diego, used a tissue biopsy (extracted sample) to analyze olfactory epithelial cells, particularly those from COVID patients with long-term anosmia.
The findings indicate our immune cells may continue reacting, even when the threat is gone.
Analyses revealed widespread infiltration by T-cells (immune cells) that caused an inflammatory response in the nose where the nerve cells for smell are located.
“The findings are striking,” senior author Bradley Goldstein, M.D., associate professor in Duke’s Department of Neurobiology, said in a statement.
“It’s almost resembling a sort of autoimmune-like process in the nose,” he noted.
Regaining Our Sense of Smell, Steroid Nasal Spray Shows Promise
A study published in the American Journal of Otolaryngology found fluticasone (Flonase) nasal spray helped participants regain their sense of smell.
Researchers looked at 120 people experiencing anosmia due to COVID-19 and split them into two groups—one that received treatment and one that did not.
They found that smell and taste function significantly improved within one week in all patients with COVID-19 who received fluticasone nasal spray.
Teitelbaum said the nasal spray may work because viral infections can cause inflammation and swelling around the olfactory nerves. Fluticasone is an over-the-counter steroid nasal spray that reduces inflammation.
“Once the infection has been gone for a month,” advised Teitelbaum. “The OTC steroid nasal spray Flonase [used] for 6 to 8 weeks may decrease the nasal and nerve swelling.”
But he cautioned that this nasal spray shouldn’t be used while symptoms of active infection, like a runny nose, are present.
Olfactory Retraining
Anosmia has been studied long before the current pandemic. A 2009 study discovered that the sense of smell could be re-sensitized in people who lost the ability to detect odors.
Researchers exposed participants to one of four odors: cloves, lemon, eucalyptus, and rose.
Patients sniffed the four intense odors twice a day for 12 weeks. They were tested for sensitivity before and after training using “Sniffin’ Sticks” of various smell intensities.
Compared to the baseline, patients who trained their olfactories experienced an increase in their sensitivity to smells, according to their Sniffin’ Sticks test score. Smell sensitivity was unchanged in patients who didn’t receive the sense training.
Research specifically looking at people with COVID-related loss of smell found that smell training effectively improved their ability to detect odors.
“When begun early and with good compliance, olfactory training was reported to be most beneficial in enhancing olfactory function,” said Teitelbaum.
Vitamins That May Help
There are many theories about what causes loss of smell in COVID, but we still don’t know exactly why.
Teitelbaum believes it’s likely a mix of several causes, including low levels of certain nutrients, such as zinc.
“I give 25 to 50 mg [of zinc] a day for 6 months [to patients],” he said.
Zinc is critical for immune function, with the key immune regulating hormone called thymulin being zinc-dependent. Many infections, including AIDS, deplete zinc to worsen immunity. Smell is also zinc-dependent.
Another key nutrient for smell is vitamin A.
“The retinol form of vitamin A at doses of 2500 to 5000 units a day may, along with zinc [at] 25 to 50 mg a day, help smell over time,” Teitelbaum recommended.
However, pregnant women need to be careful when taking this vitamin. “Vitamin A will cause birth defects in pregnant women at doses over 8000 units,” Teitelbaum warned.
A case study from 2021 describes how a COVID-19 patient’s ability to smell was restored by olfactory training combined with daily doses of these B-complex vitamins:
- 5000 IU of vitamin B1
- 100 mg of vitamin B6
- 5000 mg of vitamin B12
The patient’s anosmia was significantly improved at 12 days and his sense of smell was recovered by day 40.
Twitter’s San Francisco HQ reportedly a hub of gross smell
Elon Musk has reportedly conjured a brilliant plan to disrupt the tech sector and keep his workers focused: cut janitorial services, and slowly unleash a motivational stench across the hallowed halls of Twitter’s San Francisco headquarters.
The San Francisco offices have been slashed from four floors to two and have been without janitorial services for nearly a month, according to a new story from the New York Times about Musk’s visionary tenure as Twitter CEO.
The janitors in question went on strike in early December requesting better wages, and Musk responded by getting rid of them altogether. As a result, according to the New York Times, “The office [is] in disarray. With people packed into more confined spaces, the smell of leftover takeout food and body odor has lingered on the floors, according to four current and former employees. Bathrooms have grown dirty, these people said.”
The remaining workers are reportedly bringing in their own toilet paper, too, an act of insubordination that does not align with Musk’s apparent vision for a stinky smelly workplace. The Times story notes that Musk’s anti-hygiene stance has wafted to New York; he reportedly cut janitorial services at that Twitter office as well.
Musk’s fetid directive comes after a series of other cost-cutting maneuvers, including Twitter reportedly no longer paying rent at its San Francisco headquarters. Workers have allegedly been asked to spend long hours and sleep at the offices, which triggered a still-open investigation by the city’s Department of Building Inspection.
One could argue these measures are deeply anti-worker and unlikely to seriously alleviate Twitter’s growing debt; others — all of whom just happen to pay $8 a month for Twitter Blue — might counter that Musk is actually engaging in a rent strike and providing more housing opportunities in downtown San Francisco, both of which are heroic displays of solidarity alongside tenants rights advocates.
On Friday morning, Musk posted a cryptic meme on Twitter: “What if I told you the only way to escape the Matrix is to unlearn everything that you have been taught and rebuild your entire belief system based on critical thought and analysis.”
Do bathroom breaks exist outside the Matrix? Sounds like Twitter employees will soon find out.