Uc Science Today

When you are hungry, you may notice that your sense of smell grows stronger. But what happens to our appetite if we have a stuffy nose? According to Andrew Dillin, a molecular biologist of the University of California, Berkeley, we don’t necessarily eat less, but our metabolism does get affected. “If there is this lack of smell, this perception of the sense of smell, the body is wired to burn all the food that comes in. It doesn’t store any of it." While working on his study, Dillin has discovered that lab animals lacking a sense of smell remained thin even after eating fatty food. “There is something about the wiring of the sensory system of smell into the brain to control the rest of the body’s metabolism." And while this may sound like a great way to lose weight, scientists still don’t know exactly how the sensory organs for smell are integrated with the brain. Dillin says this requires more research in the lab – and then there will be more work looking into if the mice research translates to humans