Olfactory Training, Better

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Anosmia, by any other name…

The loss of the sense of smell (anosmia) is these days well-associated with COVID and Long-COVID, but also can simply come with age:

National Institute of Aging | How Smell & Taste Change With Age

…although it can also be something else entirely:

❝Another possibility is a problem with part of the nervous system responsible for smell.

Some studies have suggested that loss of smell could be an early sign of a neurodegenerative disease, such as Alzheimer’s or Parkinson’s disease.

However, a recent study of 1,430 people (average age about 80) showed that 76% of people with anosmia had normal cognitive function at the study’s end.❞

Read more: Harvard Health | Is it normal to lose my sense of smell as I age?

We’d love to look at and cite the paper that they cite, but they didn’t actually provide a source. We did find some others, though:

❝Olfactory capacity declines with aging, but increasing evidence shows that smell dysfunction is one of the early signs of prodromal neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s disease.

The loss of smell is considered a clinical sign of early-stage disease and a marker of the disease’s progression and cognitive impairment.❞

~ Dr. Irene Fatuzzo et al.

Read more: Neurons, Nose, and Neurodegenerative Diseases: Olfactory Function and Cognitive Impairment

What’s clear is the association; what’s not clear is whether one worsens the other, and what causal role each might play. However, the researchers conclude that both ways are possible, including when there is another, third, underlying potential causal factor:

❝Ongoing studies on COVID-19 anosmia could reveal new molecular aspects unexplored in olfactory impairments due to neurodegenerative diseases, shedding a light on the validity of smell test predictivity of cognitive dementia.

The neuroepithelium might become a new translational research target (Neurons, Nose, and Neurodegenerative diseases) to investigate alternative approaches for intranasal therapy and the treatment of brain disorders. ❞

~ Ibid.

Another study explored the possible mechanisms of action, and found…

❝Olfactory impairment was significantly associated with increased likelihoods of MCI, amnestic MCI, and non-amnestic MCI.

In the subsamples, anosmia was significantly associated with higher plasma total tau and NfL concentrations, smaller hippocampal and entorhinal cortex volumes, and greater WMH volume, and marginally with lower AD-signature cortical thickness.

These results suggest that cerebral neurodegenerative and microvascular lesions are common neuropathologies linking anosmia with MCI in older adults❞

~ Dr. Yi Dong et al.

  • MCI = Mild Cognitive Impairment
  • NfL = Neurofilament Light [Chain]
  • WMH = White Matter Hyperintensity
  • AD =Alzheimer’s Disease

Read more: Anosmia, mild cognitive impairment, and biomarkers of brain aging in older adults

How to act on this information

You may be wondering, “this is fascinating and maybe even a little bit frightening, but how is this Saturday’s Life Hacks?”

We wanted to set up the “why” before getting to the “how”, because with a big enough “why”, it’s much easier to find the motivation to act on the “how”.

Test yourself

Or more conveniently, you and a partner/friend/relative can test each other.

Simply do like a “blind taste testing”, but for smell. Ideally these will be a range of simple and complex odors, and commercially available smell test kits will provide these, if you don’t want to make do with random items from your kitchen.

If you’d like to use a clinical diagnostic tool, you can check out:

Clinical assessment of patients with smell and taste disorders

…and especially, this really handy diagnostic flowchart:

Algorithm of evaluation of a patient who has olfactory loss

Train yourself

“Olfactory training” has been the got-to for helping people to regain their sense of smell after losing it due to COVID.

In simple terms, this means simply trying to smell things that “should” have a distinctive odor, and gradually working up one’s repertoire of what one can smell.

You can get some great tips here:

AbScent | Useful Insights Into Smell Training

Hack your training

An extra trick was researched deeply in a recent study which found that multisensory integration helped a) initially regain the ability to smell things and b) maintain that ability later without the cross-sensory input.

What that means: you will more likely be able to smell lemon while viewing the color yellow, and most likely of all to be able to smell lemon while actually holding and looking at a slice of lemon. Having done this, you’re more likely to be able to smell (and distinguish) the odor of lemon later in a blind smell test.

In other words: with this method, you may be able to cut out many months of frustration of trying and failing to smell something, and skip straight to the “re-adding specific smells to my brain’s olfactory database” bit.

Read the study: Olfactory training: effects of multisensory integration, attention towards odors and physical activity

Or if you prefer, here’s a pop-science article based on that:

One in twenty people has no sense of smell—here’s how they might get it back

Take care!

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  • Eyes for Alzheimer’s Diagnosis: New?

    10almonds is reader-supported. We may, at no cost to you, receive a portion of sales if you purchase a product through a link in this article.

    It’s Q&A Time!

    This is the bit whereby each week, we respond to subscriber questions/requests/etc

    Have something you’d like to ask us, or ask us to look into? Hit reply to any of our emails, or use the feedback widget at the bottom, and a Real Human™ will be glad to read it!

    Q: As I am a retired nurse, I am always interested in new medical technology and new ways of diagnosing. I have recently heard of using the eyes to diagnose Alzheimer’s. When I did some research I didn’t find too much. I am thinking the information may be too new or I wasn’t on the right sites.

    (this is in response to last week’s piece on lutein, eyes, and brain health)

    We’d readily bet that the diagnostic criteria has to do with recording low levels of lutein in the eye (discernible by a visual examination of macular pigment optical density), and relying on the correlation between this and incidence of Alzheimer’s, but we’ve not seen it as a hard diagnostic tool as yet either—we’ll do some digging and let you know what we find! In the meantime, we note that the Journal of Alzheimer’s Disease (which may be of interest to you, if you’re not already subscribed) is onto this:

    Read: Cognitive Function and Its Relationship with Macular Pigment Optical Density and Serum Concentrations of its Constituent Carotenoids

    See also:

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  • The Fast-Mimicking Diet

    10almonds is reader-supported. We may, at no cost to you, receive a portion of sales if you purchase a product through a link in this article.

    Live, Fast, Live Long

    This is Dr. Valter Longo. He’s a biogerontologist and cell biologist, whose work has focused on fasting and nutrient response genes, and how we can leverage them against diseases and aging in general.

    We reviewed his book recently:

    The Longevity Diet: Discover The New Science To Slow Aging, Fight Disease, And Manage Your Weight – by Dr. Valter Longo

    What does he want us to know?

    What to eat

    Dr. Longo recommends a mostly plant-based diet (especially vegetables, whole grains, and legumes), but also having some fish. The bulk of our dietary fats, however, he says are best coming from olive oil and nuts.

    He also advises aiming for nutritional density of vitamins and minerals in our diet, and/but supplementing with a multivitamin once every few days to cover any gaps.

    If in doubt choosing between plant-based whole foods, he recommends that we choose those our ancestors will have eaten.

    Read more: Longevity Diet For Adults

    When to eat

    Dr. Longo recommends time-restricted eating within a 12-hour window per day.

    See also: Intermittent Fasting: We Sort The Science From The Hype

    However, he also recommends (additionally or separately; it’s up to us; additionally is better but the point is it still has excellent benefits separately too) his “fast-mimicking diet” (FMD), which involves eating according to what we said in “What to eat”, but restricting it to 750 kcal per day, 5 days in a row, but not necessarily 5 days per week.

    For example, the following was a 3-month study that involved doing this for only one 5-day cycle per month:

    ❝Three FMD cycles reduced body weight, trunk, and total body fat; lowered blood pressure; and decreased insulin-like growth factor 1 (IGF-1). No serious adverse effects were reported.

    A post hoc analysis of subjects from both FMD arms showed that body mass index, blood pressure, fasting glucose, IGF-1, triglycerides, total and low-density lipoprotein cholesterol, and C-reactive protein were more beneficially affected in participants at risk for disease than in subjects who were not at risk.

    Thus, cycles of a 5-day FMD are safe, feasible, and effective in reducing markers/risk factors for aging and age-related diseases.❞

    ~ Dr. Min Wei et al. ← Dr. Longo was

    Note: the introduction mentions FMD in mice, but this is just referencing previous studies. This study is about FMD in humans!

    Read in full: Fasting-mimicking diet and markers/risk factors for aging, diabetes, cancer, and cardiovascular disease

    Want to know more?

    You might like this (text-based) interview with Dr. Longo, with the Health Sciences Academy:

    Eat, fast and live longer? Interview with Professor Valter Longo

    Take care!

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  • 52 Small Changes – by Brett Blumenthal

    10almonds is reader-supported. We may, at no cost to you, receive a portion of sales if you purchase a product through a link in this article.

    We see a lot of books that exhort us to get a six-pack in a month, change our life in 7 days, learn Japanese in 24 hours. The reality is, things take time!

    Brett Blumenthal is more realistic while being just as motivational:

    The idea is simple… Make one small change per week for 52 weeks, and at the end of the year, you’ll be healthier and happier.

    At 10almonds, we’re big fans of small changes that add up (or rather: compound!) to make big differences, so this one’s absolutely our style!

    Best of all, she offers us not just “do this” advice, but also “and here’s the information and resources you’ll need to make this change work the best it can for you”

    The advices range in topic from nutrition to exercise to sleep to mental wellness to interpersonal stuff and more. The biggest focus is on personal health, though, with small changes to exercise and nutrition making up the lion’s share of the changes.

    Bottom line: this is a book you’ll want to grab once a week. Consider setting a reminder on your phone to check in with it each Sunday, for example!

    Take the first step and order “52 Small Changes” from Amazon today!

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Related Posts

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  • Dietary Changes for Artery Health

    10almonds is reader-supported. We may, at no cost to you, receive a portion of sales if you purchase a product through a link in this article.

    It’s Q&A Day at 10almonds!

    Have a question or a request? You can always hit “reply” to any of our emails, or use the feedback widget at the bottom!

    In cases where we’ve already covered something, we might link to what we wrote before, but will always be happy to revisit any of our topics again in the future too—there’s always more to say!

    As ever: if the question/request can be answered briefly, we’ll do it here in our Q&A Thursday edition. If not, we’ll make a main feature of it shortly afterwards!

    So, no question/request too big or small

    ❝How does your diet change clean out your arteries of the bad cholesterol?❞

    There’s good news and bad news here, and they can both be delivered with a one-word reply:

    Slowly.

    Or rather: what’s being cleaned out is mostly not the LDL (bad) cholesterol, but rather, the result of that.

    When our diet is bad for cardiovascular health, our arteries get fatty deposits on their walls. Cholesterol gets stuck here too, but that’s not the main physical problem.

    Our body’s natural defenses come into action and try to clean it up, but they (for example macrophages, a kind of white blood cell that consumes invaders and then dies, before being recycled by the next part of the system) often get stuck and become part of the buildup (called atheroma), which can lead to atherosclerosis and (if calcium levels are high) hardening of the arteries, which is the worst end of this.

    This can then require medical attention, precisely because the body can’t remove it very well—especially if you are still maintaining a heart-unhealthy diet, thus continuing to add to the mess.

    However, if it is not too bad yet, yes, a dietary change alone will reverse this process. Without new material being added to the arterial walls, the body’s continual process of rejuvenation will eventually fix it, given time (free from things making it worse) and resources.

    In fact, your arteries can be one of the quickest places for your body to make something better or worse, because the blood is the means by which the body moves most things (good or bad) around the body.

    All the more reason to take extra care of it, since everything else depends on it!

    You might also like our previous main feature:

    All Things Heart Health

    Don’t Forget…

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    Learn to Age Gracefully

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  • Radical Longevity – by Dr. Ann Gittleman

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    Dr. Gittleman takes a comprehensive approach, advising us about avoiding AGEs, freeing up fascia, stimulating cellular rejuvenation, the mind-gut connection, keeping the immune system healthy, and more.

    The “plan” promised by the subtitle involves identifying the key factors of nutrition and lifestyle most impactful to you, and adjusting them accordingly, in a multistep, author-walks-the-reader-by-the-hand process.

    There’s also, for those who prefer it, a large section (seven chapters) on a body part/system by body part/system approach, e.g. brain health, heart health, revitalizing skin, reversing hair loss, repairing bones, muscles, joints, etc.

    The writing style is quite casual,butalso with a mind to education, with its call-out boxes, bullet-point summaries, and so forth. There is a “select references” section, but if one wants to find studies, it’s often necessary to go looking, as there aren’t inline citations.

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    Click here to check out Radical Longevity, and get rejuvenating radically!

    Don’t Forget…

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  • Is It Dementia?

    10almonds is reader-supported. We may, at no cost to you, receive a portion of sales if you purchase a product through a link in this article.

    Spot The Signs (Because None Of Us Are Immune)

    Dementia affects increasingly many people, and unlike a lot of diseases, it disproportionately affects people in wealthy industrialized nations.

    There are two main reasons for this:

    • Longevity (in poorer countries, more people die of other things sooner; can’t get age-related cognitive decline if you don’t age)
    • Lifestyle (in the age of convenience, it has never been easier to live an unhealthy lifestyle)

    The former is obviously no bad thing for those of us lucky enough to be in wealthier countries (though even in such places, good healthcare access is of course sadly not a given for all).

    The latter, however, is less systemic and more epidemic. But it does cut both ways:

    • An unhealthy lifestyle is much easier here, yes
    • A healthier lifestyle is much easier here, too!

    This then comes down to two factors in turn:

    • Information: knowing about dementia, what things lead to it, what to look out for, what to do
    • Motivation: priorities, and how much attention we choose to give this matter

    So, let’s get some information, and then give it our attention!

    More than just memory

    It’s easy to focus on memory loss, but the four key disabilities directly caused by dementia (each person may not get all four), can be remembered by the mnemonic: “AAAA!”

    No, somebody didn’t just murder your writer. It’s:

    • Amnesia: memory loss, in one or more of its many forms
      • e.g. short term memory loss, and/or inability to make new memories
    • Aphasia: loss of ability to express oneself, and/or understand what is expressed
    • Apraxia: loss of ability to do things, through no obvious physical disability
      • e.g. staring at the bathroom mirror wondering how to brush one’s teeth
    • Agnosia: loss of ability to recognize things
      • e.g. prosopagnosia, also called face-blindness.

    If any of those seem worryingly familiar, be aware that while yes, it could be a red flag, what’s most important is patterns of these things.

    Another difference between having a momentary brainlapse and having dementia might be, for example, the difference between forgetting your keys, and forgetting what keys do or how to use one.

    That said, some are neurological deficits that may show up quite unrelated to dementia, including most of those given as examples above. So if you have just one, then that’s probably worthy of note, but probably not dementia.

    Writer’s anecdote: I have had prosopagnosia all my life. To give an example of what that is like and how it’s rather more than just “bad with faces”…

    Recently I saw my neighbor, and I could tell something was wrong with her face, but I couldn’t put my finger on what it was. Then some moments later, I realized I had mistaken her hat for her face. It was a large beanie with a panda design on it, and that was facelike enough for me to find myself looking at the wrong face.

    Subjective memory matters as much as objective

    Objective memory tests are great indicators of potential cognitive decline (or improvement!), but even a subjective idea of having memory problems, that one’s memory is “not as good as it used to be”, can be an important indicator too:

    Subjective memory may be marker for cognitive decline

    And more recently:

    If your memory feels like it’s not what it once was, it could point to a future dementia risk

    If you’d like an objective test of memory and other cognitive impairments, here’s the industry’s gold standard test (it’s free):

    SAGE: A Test to Detect Signs of Alzheimer’s and Dementia

    (The Self-Administered Gerocognitive Exam (SAGE) is designed to detect early signs of cognitive, memory or thinking impairments)

    There are things that can look like dementia that aren’t

    A person with dementia may be unable to recognize their partner, but hey, this writer knows that feeling very well too. So what sets things apart?

    More than we have room for today, but here’s a good overview:

    What are the early signs of dementia, and how does it differ from normal aging?

    Want to read more?

    You might like our previous article more specifically about reducing Alzheimer’s risk:

    Reducing Alzheimer’s Risk Early!

    Take care!

    Don’t Forget…

    Did you arrive here from our newsletter? Don’t forget to return to the email to continue learning!

    Learn to Age Gracefully

    Join the 98k+ American women taking control of their health & aging with our 100% free (and fun!) daily emails: