Alzheimer's disease, the infamous degeneration of the mind in many unfortunate individuals, has a new, slightly unorthodox test to confirm diagnosis in early stages.
According to Science Daily's article, graduate student Jennifer Stamps has come up with an effective "peanut butter test" useful for confirming Alzheimer's diagnosis. Upon noticing that patients' sense of smell was not tested at the practice she observed, she went about finding an inexpensive, effective way of testing the sense. Peanut butter is brought closer centimeter by centimeter to the patient's left nostril, then the same with the right, measuring the distance. In patients diagnosed with the beginnings of Alzheimer's, the left nostril is impaired.
Although it is by no means a cure or even a conventional method, but the peanut butter test proves useful in confirming diagnosis in a quick, cheap way with no invasive medical tests. It will no doubt be tweaked and perfected with use, but for now it is simply an amusing ray of sunshine in something as tragic as Alzheimer's disease.
This is so strange!! I can't fathom that peanut butter can do this. Why is the left nostril impaired when the peanut butter is brought to their nose? Is it because the right side of the brain is paralyzed from Alzheimer's.
ReplyDeleteWow this is amazing!! I'm shocked to hear that Stamps was able to notice such a small detail that was overlooked, yet she ended up making a major scientific discovery. This could help diagnose people earlier, thus helping to treat Alzheimer's earlier. I am a strong believer in early treatment because I am positive that it can help lessen the effects of a disease and even save a life. It makes me wonder: are there warning signs in our other senses that were not mentioned in this article?
ReplyDeleteOMG!! Wait, I'm kind of confused how the peanut butter can do this too. Like, what does it have in it to make this outcome occur? This makes me wonder about our other senses too. This is really shocking, but the way I look at it, if she can make this discovery without even using medical tests or anything like that, there are probably many more simple treatments out there just waiting to be discovered!
ReplyDeleteI cannot believe this is a real thing. Honestly, how can peanut butter conclude such a thing. It is amazing that they can find a correlation between the peanut butter and Alzheimer's. It makes me wonder if there are other, more simplistic methods for finding relationships in science. If only there were detections for all kinds of disease! I think it is great that Stamps noticed this and I wonder too if she is working on discovering anything else similar, or if she is still experimenting with Alzheimer's and peanut butter.
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