Peanut Butter Test Could Help Diagnose Alzheimer's Disease

A small peanut butter test can help diagnose Alzheimer's disease early.

Developed by a professor and a graduate student at the University of Florida, the test checks the smell sensitivity of a person to detect early stages of the disease.

The researchers tested 24 patients. They were told to sniff 14 grams of peanut butter with one nostril, both eyes and mouth closed. After sometime the researchers moved the peanut butter by one centimeter and observed the patients' olfactory response. This method was repeated for the other nostril after 90 seconds.

Results showed that patients with early stage of Alzheimer's disease had trouble smelling the peanut butter. They found that the left nostril of these patients was less sensitive and were unable to detect the smell of the peanut butter that was kept at an average distance of 10 centimetres from the nose.

Of the 24 patients tested, 14 were diagnosed with the disease and rest were healthy.

"At the moment, we can use this test to confirm diagnosis," the student Jennifer Stamps said in a release. "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."

Heilman said that the new test may provide a more practical tool for clinicians, given that current diagnostics for Alzheimer's and other forms of dementia can be expensive, invasive, and time-consuming.

"We see people with all kinds of memory disorders," co-author Dr Kenneth Heilman said. "This can become an important part of the evaluation process."