This culinary tool is helping researchers diagnose the disease in its very early stages. According to a study, published in the Journal of the Neurological Sciences, a dollop of peanut butter can indicate whether patients are experiencing early stages of dementia based on their sense of smell. Researchers at the University of Florida’s McKnight Brain Institute Centre for Smell and Taste found that by placing a tablespoon of peanut butter on a ruler, they could identify early stages of Alzheimer’s based on studying the subjects’ ability to detect its odour at different distances. This is because the ability to smell is linked to the first cranial nerve and its impediment is one of the first signs of cognitive decline. The researcher responsible for choosing peanut butter, graduate student Jennifer Stamps, said that, the nutty spread was an ideal pick because it is a ‘pure odorant’, which means it is solely detected by the olfactory nerve. Plus, it’s inexpensive and easy to access. Patients who participated were told to close their eyes, block one nostril, and breathe normally while a clinician slowly moved the peanut butter up the ruler one centimetre at a time until the patient was able to detect the odour. The distance was recorded and then repeated again using the other nostril, after a 90-second break. The results reveal that, in patients with Alzheimer’s disease, the left nostril was impaired and did not pick on the scent until it was an average of 10 centimetres closer to the nose than the right nostril. At the moment, we can use this test to confirm diagnosis. 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, Stamps says. She also points out that this test could be used by hospitals and clinics that have limited or no access to the personnel or equipment to run more elaborate tests that yield a specific diagnosis and therefore lead to targeted treatment. If we can catch it at that early stage, we can start treatment more aggressively at the early stage, she said. And you can possibly prevent a lot of the progression.