Not being able to properly identify odors is an early clinical feature of Alzheimer’s disease, according to a study from Harvard Medical School (United States). People who fail odor tests also have a higher level of amyloid plaques in the brain (proteins indicative of Alzheimer’s disease). Quite simply because when the disease begins to affect brain cells, it often attacks cells crucial to the sense of smell.
Some people have a more intense sense of smell than others and are able to perceive smells that others did not. But smelling a slightly odd smell (like a fishy smell in a place where no one is cooking, for example) could be a sign that you are having a stroke. During a stroke, blood flow to the brain is reduced or even blocked, this can affect the smell area.
According to the American Academy of Neurology, olfactory hallucinations are quite common and most often cause bad smells to be smelled, but these often vary from person to person. But rest assured: these hallucinations are not necessarily the sign that you are having a stroke : this can happen in many other circumstances.
This is not common but it is possible to have olfactory hallucinations (called phantosmias) such as migraine aura. As with the stroke mentioned above, it is often unpleasant odors that tickle our nostrils and most often the smell of things burning or decomposing. This sensation can last between 5 and 60 minutes. It appears shortly before a migraine and often goes away when pain medication are starting to take effect.
If you have the feeling that you have lost your sense of smell and the feeling is not only fleeting but it really lasts, it may be a sign that you are not in perfect health. Researchers at the University of Chicago found that the 40% of older people who had altered sense of smell and could no longer smell certain strong smells like peppermint, orange, rose, died within 5 years. that followed. A bad sense of smell could represent a bad process of regeneration or repair of the cells of the body.
Certain everyday smells that went unnoticed suddenly come to tickle your nostrils unpleasantly: you are undoubtedly stressed. According to American researchers, stress disturbs certain brain mechanisms to such an extent that it changes neutral scents into foul odors. The more anxious we are, the more repulsive the smells appear.