Scientifically proven: The smell of food also makes you fat

The smell is a fundamental part for the enjoyment of a good meal. What we did not know until now is that it also represents a crucial factor for the body to store the calories we eat, a new study suggests. That is, according to researchers at the University of California at Berkeley (USA), smelling the food also makes you fat.

To reach this conclusion, the scientists carried out a series of experiments on mice, which are described in an article published on the university's website. First, the researchers genetically manipulated rodents to reduce their olfactory abilities and fed them with high-fat foods to compare their evolution with that of other normal mice that followed the same diet.

Three weeks later, the scientists were surprised when they analyzed the weight of the two groups, when they saw that the mice with reduced olfactory capacities increased only 10% their weight, while those who maintained a normal sense of smell doubled their body mass and They gained up to 100% of weight.

In the investigation, they also analyzed the case of obese mice without smell, which ended up losing weight and restored their normal mass despite following the same diet with a high fat content.

To reinforce the results, the researchers were then associated with colleagues from Germany who have a strain of mice with "super-phosphate". The experiment found that they also gained even more weight than normal mice, even eating the same food.

These findings show, according to researchers, that the smell of what we eat can play a crucial role in how the body spends calories: by not smelling the food, the body could burn them more quickly instead of storing reserves.

Their conclusions point to a connection between the olfactory system and the regions of the brain that regulate metabolism, particularly the hypothalamus, although much of the mechanisms of these neural circuits are still unknown.