New Study: Just Smelling Your Food Cat Make You Gain Wieght

Psychgrrl
Psychgrrl Posts: 3,177 Member
edited November 20 in Health and Weight Loss
Here's the link.

I heard about this on the radio this morning and had to look it up as it sounded ridiculous. I haven't looked up the actual study in the journal yet.I don't know how many mice they used, etc.

OK, I know I'm not a Biochemist, but this just seems like BS to me. What if the sense of smell makes us eat more, even if we're not hungry. There are many other animals that have a strong sense of smell than mice and humans (dogs, for instance) and they're not all fat.

And the losing-your-sense-of-smell potential side effect of a heart attack, kinda a draw back in my opinion. ::eye roll::

Does anyone see the validity in this? Cause I'm not.
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Replies

  • Penthesilea514
    Penthesilea514 Posts: 1,189 Member
    What's a food cat?

    :lol:

    Sorry I didn't read the article, but I agree with your BS claim at first thought.
  • Penthesilea514
    Penthesilea514 Posts: 1,189 Member
    Dang nabbit, @quiksylver296 - you are so fast!

    :smiley:
  • quiksylver296
    quiksylver296 Posts: 28,439 Member
    edited July 2017
    Sorry. I didn't answer your question originally because I was entertaining myself.

    Obviously, smelling food can't make me fat. But, I have smelled something good that I didn't plan on eating and it smelled so good I did eat it. If I didn't allot for those extra calories, or never exercised my self-control and ate everything I ever smelled that smelled good, I could gain weight.
  • Old_Cat_Lady
    Old_Cat_Lady Posts: 1,193 Member
    edited July 2017
    I read the study and it made sense. They "killed" the smelling nerves of rats. Healed after 3 weeks. Those rats lost weight during that time. Simple study.
    My first thought, why not kill the sense of taste while they are at it?
  • Old_Cat_Lady
    Old_Cat_Lady Posts: 1,193 Member
    edited July 2017
    Yes, the study said the rats ate the same amount of food. Crazy !!!!
    These smell-deficient mice started turning their beige fat cells, used to store fat around the body, into brown fat cells, which burn up fatty acids. What's more, their white fat cells – which store fat around the internal organs and can cause health problems if too many build up – got smaller.

    Next: Walk in clinics at malls where they can "burn" your nerves of smell in your nose. They can call it "zappy's".
    I see that skunk spray ad coming back.
  • quiksylver296
    quiksylver296 Posts: 28,439 Member
    edited July 2017
    Psychgrrl wrote: »
    They're connecting weight gain to sense of smell because mice without smell ate the same amount as mice with smell, but only the mice with smell gained a lot of weight. So, for their results, sense of smell means weight gain in mice.

    I still think it has to be something else.

    It's got to be.

    The findings suggest that the odor of what we eat may play an important role in how the body deals with calories. If you can’t smell your food, you may burn it rather than store it.

    But why would the body burn it? Where are all of our super smart scientific MFPers?
  • canarysal
    canarysal Posts: 118 Member
    My husband has loss of smell and it definitely made him lose weight as a result, he says takes enjoyment out of eating. He gets course of medication every few months to regain smell but eventually the benefits wear off.
  • oolou
    oolou Posts: 765 Member
    edited July 2017
    I think I would be depressed if I lost my sense of smell, even if it meant weight loss. But an interesting study. If the same consequences are seen in humans, I wonder if the risks would be greater or less than weightloss surgery for the morbidly obese.

    (checks calendar - not april 1st?)
  • RunsWithBees
    RunsWithBees Posts: 1,508 Member
    I work with elderly people and many of them have lost their sense of smell for one reason or another and they do lose weight but it's because it affects their appetite and food no longer brings them enjoyment. So many of them complain that food just doesn't taste the same and they refuse to eat or consume so little that they just waste away and become very underweight, they lose a lot of muscle too and being underweight brings about just as many health problems as being overweight does. So I'm wondering if this did work, the people who they temporarily take the sense of smell away from would just go back to eating as much as they did before once the sense of smell returned. Possibly they'd eat more because they'd missed out on the enjoyment of eating for so long and gain weight again. Then they'd need to have their sense of smell taken away again to lose the weight once more and it would become a viscous cycle, since they never really learned to control food portions. Yo-yoing their weight up and down over and over, that can't be good either, so I think this would be an experiment that might not translate well from mice to humans.

  • Jthanmyfitnesspal
    Jthanmyfitnesspal Posts: 3,522 Member
    Food aroma has a physiological response, for sure. It may slightly raise insulin levels, but that likely quickly recovers. It definitely increases appetite, but that can recover as well, depending on if you indulge it.

    I've gone past many enticing food aromas while exercising, and it has an immediate effect, eg, "cant wait for dinner."

    Luckily, my Food Cat often provides.
  • ZeetaFit
    ZeetaFit Posts: 24 Member
    I was just in the grocery store. The smell of freshly baked cookies sure made me want to eat them. My guess - without reading the study - is that if something attracts us by smelling yummy people (not focused on eating right and losing weight) are more likely to eat them.
  • accidentalpancake
    accidentalpancake Posts: 484 Member
    quiksylver296 wrote: »
    Psychgrrl wrote: »
    They're connecting weight gain to sense of smell because mice without smell ate the same amount as mice with smell, but only the mice with smell gained a lot of weight. So, for their results, sense of smell means weight gain in mice.

    I still think it has to be something else.

    It's got to be.

    The findings suggest that the odor of what we eat may play an important role in how the body deals with calories. If you can’t smell your food, you may burn it rather than store it.

    But why would the body burn it? Where are all of our super smart scientific MFPers?

    It just illustrates that there are processes in play past simple CICO, at a very basic level. Nothing worth changing habits for, though. I'm not reading with a clothespin on my nose any time soon.
  • PikaJoyJoy
    PikaJoyJoy Posts: 280 Member
    snickerscharlie wrote: »
    ZeetaFit wrote: »
    I was just in the grocery store. The smell of freshly baked cookies sure made me want to eat them. My guess - without reading the study - is that if something attracts us by smelling yummy people (not focused on eating right and losing weight) are more likely to eat them.

    Punctuation. It's important. B)

    Didn't there used to be an entry for human flesh? :D
  • snickerscharlie
    snickerscharlie Posts: 8,578 Member
    edited July 2017
    PikaJoyJoy wrote: »
    snickerscharlie wrote: »
    ZeetaFit wrote: »
    I was just in the grocery store. The smell of freshly baked cookies sure made me want to eat them. My guess - without reading the study - is that if something attracts us by smelling yummy people (not focused on eating right and losing weight) are more likely to eat them.

    Punctuation. It's important. B)

    Didn't there used to be an entry for human flesh? :D

    It's still there. :)
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    vo8l6nhgrojo.jpg

  • PikaJoyJoy
    PikaJoyJoy Posts: 280 Member
    c1f44a010529bfdfe6962a0bf6b9a212.gif
  • nutmegoreo
    nutmegoreo Posts: 15,532 Member
    I originally read the title as smelling cat food can make you gain weight. I have two cats, I can assure you that smelling their food would be a great appetite suppressant.

    I'm with the people who think there's more at play. When calorie consumption is equal, there's something else. Maybe extra cals on healing. Maybe they spend more time running in their wheel pondering their loss of smell. Who knows.
  • pamfgil
    pamfgil Posts: 449 Member
    edited July 2017
    There was another study that indicated that reducing your ability to taste by drinking ice water at a meal increases the amount you eat (assuming you are not measuring your intake)
  • Unknown
    Unknown
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  • Psychgrrl
    Psychgrrl Posts: 3,177 Member
    Ahhhh, typos! More fun than the actual post! :tongue:
This discussion has been closed.

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