Research done in 2013 by a graduate student at the University of Florida found that peanut butter can help diagnose Alzheimer’s in the early stage of the disease. Jennifer Stamps was studying under a neurologist when she realized that Alzheimer’s patients were not being tested for their sense of smell. As a scientist, she knew that the sense of smell is one of the first things impacted by Alzheimer’s and other cognitive problems. The neurologist told her she could organize a test, so long as it would be quick and the materials would be inexpensive. She decided on peanut butter because it is a highly recognizable smell and easy to find on any store shelves.
For the test, Stamps started with one tablespoon of peanut butter, having the patients cover one nostril at a time. She would then move the peanut butter further away from their nostrils, measuring how far the patient was able to detect the smell. The test found that patients who were in the early stages of Alzheimer’s had a much more difficult time sensing the odor than those with other variations of dementia. The University of Florida plans to add the test, still using peanut butter, to its rotation of clinical tests performed on patients. While more testing needs to be done in order to fully figure out the relationship between the sense of smell and the development of Alzheimer’s, scientists agree that a simple smell test with products like peanut butter is a noninvasive way to detect Alzheimer’s earlier.