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Home » Lose Weight » Smelling food has been linked to weight gain, so the end really is nigh – Metro

(Picture: Dominic Lipinski/PA Wire)

If youve ever walked into a KFC and felt like the smell alone wasmaking you gain weight before even putting the first juicy morsel to your lips, then you might have been onto something.

Because new research claims that smelling food before eating it might be linked to weight gain.

Scientists from the University of California, Berkeley, looked at mice to determine how the smell of food affected the way the body processes calories.

Using gene therapy, they cut off the sense of smell in one group of obese rodents and fed them the same amount of grub as another group of mice who could still smell.

And they found that those who couldnt smell lost weight compared to those who could.

The mice who were able to smell doubled in weight and those witha heightened sense of smell put on the most weight of all.

And thats led the researchers to conclude that smelling food can lead the body to store calories rather than burn them off.

This paper is one of the first studies that really shows if we manipulate olfactory inputs we can actually alter how the brain perceives energy balance, and how the brain regulates energy balance, says Cline Riera, ofCedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles.

Theyre hoping that eventually, this kind of theory might help people dealing with eating disorders and those who struggle to lose weight.

Senior author Andrew Dillin,professor of molecular and cell biology and Howard Hughes Medical Institute Investigator, says that weight gain isnt simply a matter of how many calories go in but also how the calories are perceived by the body.

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If we can validate this in humans, perhaps we can actually make a drug that doesnt interfere with smell but still blocks that metabolic circuitry. That would be amazing.

For that small group of people, you could wipe out their smell for maybe six months and then let the olfactory neurons grow back, after theyve got their metabolic program rewired.

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Smelling food has been linked to weight gain, so the end really is nigh - Metro

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Home » Lose Weight » Smelling food has been linked to weight gain, so the end really is nigh – Metro