Does the heart have a sense of smell?
In a study that suggests that smells play a far more important role in life than previously believed, scientists have found that heart, blood, lungs and other organs in the body have the same receptors for smell that exist in the nose.
Dr. Peter Schieberl explained that scientists used to think that only the nose had olfactory receptors. Located on special cells in the olfactory epithelium at the back of the nose, olfactory receptors are "ports" for airborne chemical compounds responsible for the smell of food and other substances. These molecules bind to receptors, which trigger a chain of biochemical events that register in the brain as specific odors. But the discovery of olfactory receptors on other, non-olfactory cells is a complete surprise.
"There is increasing evidence that the heart, lungs and many other non-olfactory organs also have these receptors. When food is eaten, its ingredients pass from the stomach into the bloodstream, but now the question arises whether this means that the heart also "smells" what we eat," said Schieberl.
Scientists have recently discovered that primary blood cells isolated from the blood samples are attracted to the odor molecules responsible for producing a particular smell. Dr. Schieberl described an experiment in which scientists placed an odorant on one side of a divided chamber and blood cells on the other, causing the blood cells to move toward the odor. "When the olfactory components are inside the body, it is not clear whether they function in the same way as in the nose," he said. "But we're on our way to finding out." Of the many studies that have been done to identify food components, few have been directed at linking those components to the perception of taste, he added.
Source: Serbian Scientific Television
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