Nostril

If You Can Smell This, You May Not Have Alzheimer’s.

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A new diagnostic test involves a dollop of peanut butter.

Peanut Butter

You may not have heard of “the peanut butter test,” but it could become a fantastically low-cost and non-invasive way to test for Alzheimer’s. After all, what’s less invasive than asking someone to smell some delicious peanut butter?

“The ability to smell is associated with the first cranial nerve and is often one of the first things to be affected in cognitive decline,” reads this release from the University of Florida, researchers from which conducted the experiment. But with Alzheimer’s patients, the sense of smell is affected in a very particular way: The left nostril is significantly more impaired than the right. Weird! But true.

The experiment involved capping one nostril and measuring the distance at which the patient could detect about a tablespoon of peanut butter. In Alzheimer’s patients, the left nostril was impaired so thoroughly that, on average, it had 10 centimeters less range than the right, in terms of odor detection. That’s specific to Alzheimer’s patients; neither control patients (those not suffering from cognitive decline) nor those with other types of cognitive impairment (like dementia) demonstrated that nostril difference.

Peanut butter was used because it’s a so-called “pure odorant.” Generally our sense of smell actually incorporates two distinct sensations: the olfactory sense, or smell, as well as a trigeminal sense, which is like a more physical burning or stinging sort of sense. Peanut butter has no trigeminal element; it’s only olfactory, which makes it ideal for testing, as the link to Alzheimer’s is specifically dealing with the olfactory sense.

This could be a great, inexpensive, early warning system for those with Alzheimer’s; the illness is not easy to detect, requiring neurological examination as well as mental, and has to be carried out by a professional. The peanut butter test? Much easier.

Invasion of the Nostril Ticks.

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Tony Goldberg had been back from Uganda for only about a day when he felt a distressingly familiar itch in his nose. A veterinary epidemiologist at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, he had just spent a few weeks in Kibale National Park studying chimpanzees and how the diseases they carry might make the jump to humans. Now, he realized, he might have brought one of their parasites home with him.

There was only one way to be sure. Goldberg quickly gathered the necessary supplies—a pair of forceps, a flashlight, and a mirror—and steeled his resolve. Using the mirror to steer his hand, he poked the instrument into his irritated nostril, latched onto a suspicious lump, and quickly yanked it out, careful not to snag any nose hairs in the process. There it was: an adolescent tick. At that point, Goldberg knew, it had likely been living in his nostril for several days.

This was not Goldberg’s first nostril tick, and it’s unlikely to be his last. (On the whole, he says, the experience is “not pleasant but not as bad as you might think.”) He’s seen lots of chimpanzees with nostril ticks during his time in the field, so he’s not surprised a few of the parasites have taken advantage of his presence to burrow into the nose of a closely related primate. This particular tick, however, presented a unique opportunity. Because he found it when he was already back in his lab, Goldberg says, “I was in a position to preserve it for DNA analysis. It was just lucky that the timing was right.”

The nostril tick belonged to the genus Amblyomma, species of which are known to carry diseases that can infect mammals ranging from cows to people. But for now, that’s all Goldberg knows. “Its genetic sequence didn’t match anything in any known databases. So it could be a known species of tick that hasn’t been genetically characterized yet, or a completely new species,” he says. Goldberg reports his analysis in the latest issue of The American Journal of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene.

“It’s fun to welcome Tony to that small, elite club of publishers on ticks in the nose,” says Gary Aronsen, an anthropologist at Yale University who is one of the few other scientists to have written about a close encounter with a nostril tick. (He sneezed his out during a layover in Amsterdam and brought it home with him in a chewing gum wrapper, though he wasn’t able to sequence its DNA.) Picking up parasites like these is “part of the glory and glamour of fieldwork.”

Although researchers know very little about nostril ticks, including which other species they infest and if they carry any diseases, Goldberg speculates that his might be adapted to live in noses of chimpanzees. Chimps are fastidious groomers, so any parasite that wants to hang around for a while needs to fly under the radar. “I can’t think of a better way to do that than hide in an anatomic site that is difficult to access with the fingers,” Goldberg says. “There are several of those—some of which we won’t discuss—but the nostril certainly counts.” (In case you’re wondering, yes, chimps do pick their noses, but it doesn’t seem to dislodge the ticks.)

Because most ticks need to feed on at least three different hosts in their lifetimes, they are exceptionally good at transmitting disease. Species-jumping nostril ticks are “yet another example of how nature provides opportunities for pathogen spillover,” says tick biologist Thomas Mather of the University of Rhode Island, Kingston. Still, the thought of nostril ticks spreading throughout North America isn’t keeping him up at night. “I’m not looking at this as a likely pathway for the introduction of exotic ticks. How many ticks are going to be in a person or two’s nose?”

Nearly a year and a half after removing his own nostril tick, Goldberg hasn’t suffered any ill effects. But the parasite remains a mysterious creature, and for now, the only thing to do is wait for more specimens to turn up. He hopes his paper will raise awareness among his fellow field scientists. Soon, he suspects, “somebody somewhere will come up with another nose tick and will advance the field to the next level.”

10 More Amazing Things About Our Bodies.

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Your body truly is amazing, and we’ve only scratched the surface as far as discovering all of the mysteries of its extremely complex capabilities and inner workings.

The featured article highlighted 10 particularly noteworthy facts you may not be aware of, but which are utterly fascinating about your body.

10 Amazing Human Body Facts

10. You Can’t Swallow and Breathe at the Same Time

Virtually every other mammal can; however, human babies can only until they’re about 9 months old. Around this time the voice box drops quite low in the neck compared to other animals, which allows us to have a wide range of sounds for speech – but takes our ability to breathe and eat or drink at the same time.

9. You Have Two Brains

Just as you have neurons in your brain, you also have neurons in your gut – including neurons that produce neurotransmitters like serotonin, which is also found in your brain and is linked to mood. Your gut literally serves as your second brain, and even produces more of the neurotransmitter serotonin – known to have a beneficial influence on your mood – than your brain does.

In other words, you have two nervous systems: the central nervous system, composed of your brain and spinal cord, and the enteric nervous system, which is the intrinsic nervous system of your gastrointestinal tract. Both are actually created out of the same type of embryonic tissue. During fetal development, one part turns into your central nervous system while the other develops into your enteric nervous system.

To put this into more concrete terms, you’ve probably experienced the visceral sensation of butterflies in your stomach when you’re nervous, or had an upset stomach when you were very angry or stressed. The flip side is also true, in that problems in your gut can directly impact your mental health, leading to issues like anxiety, depression, and perhaps even more serious neurodevelopmental disorders such as autism.

8. Loneliness is Physically Painful

Loneliness is emotionally painful for sure, but it’s physically painful as well. In fact, both loneliness and physical pain are processed in the same region of your brain, the anterior cingulate cortex. So just as you have a powerful drive to avoid causing physical pain to your body, you have a similarly powerful drive to connect with others and seek companionship – in order to avoid painful feelings of loneliness.

7. You Salivate More Before You Vomit

…And there’s a very good reason for this. Because stomach acid can be harsh on your throat and mouth, the extra saliva helps dilute the acid and rinse it away to minimize any damage caused by vomiting.

6. Sugar Can Help Your Wounds Heal

Not by eating it, of course, but rather by sprinkling it directly on the wound. Sugar is hygroscopic, which means it absorbs water that bacteria need to survive. This method has been popular among healers in Africa for generations, and it is reportedly useful for bed sores, leg ulcers, amputations and more.

A twist on this idea is to use honey, which will help draw fluid away from your wound and suppress the growth of microorganisms. Part of what gives honey its antibacterial properties is an enzyme called glucose oxidase, which the worker bees excrete into the nectar (this is found only in raw honey). Another part is the presence of beneficial Lactobacillus bacteria, found only in raw honey, which fight infection.

5. Memories Work in Mysterious Ways

Have you ever walked into a room and then forgotten why you went there in the first place? This is because your brain perceives the doorway as an “event boundary,” and memories from the room you just left are “stored” there for when you need them. This is why when you go back through the doorway into the prior room you can often remember what it is that you forgot!

4. Some Women See More Colors

Most people have three types of color receptors that allow them to see color vision. Some women have four, however, which allows them to see a wider range of colors than the average person (a small percentage of women even have five color receptors). Why women? The red and green color receptors, which can be shifted to allow for a greater range of color vision, are located on the X chromosome; blue is on the Y.

3. It Might be Healthy to Eat Boogers

Your nasal mucus might be host to small amounts of contaminants (acting as antigens) that may actually “educate” and boost your immune system when they’re consumed. So contrary to the belief that eating boogers could make you sick, it might actually help your body to fight off illnesses.

2. Most People Only Breathe Through One Nostril at a Time

Though you’ve got two nostrils, about 85 percent of people only use one at a time. But, erectile tissue in your nose slowly swells the tissue in one nostril while shrinking it in the other, so you automatically switch breathing between nostrils about every four hours.

Interestingly, body position, illness and other factors can influence which nostril you breathe from when, and, in turn, the nostril you’re breathing from can impact your health. For instance, breathing through the right nostril causes you to use more oxygen and raises your blood sugar levels.

1. Seven Miles of New Blood Vessels for Every Pound of Fat Gained

When you gain a pound of fat, your body makes seven new miles of blood vessels. This means your body must work harder to pump blood through all of these extra new vessels, which may put a strain on your heart, and may reduce oxygenation and nutrient replenishment in other tissues. Fortunately, if you lose a pound, your body will break down and re-absorb the now unnecessary vessels.

Source: By Dr. Mercola