A new study has led to the discovery that not only the nose but blood cells and organs like the heart and lungs and other body cell have sensory receptors; making scientists wonder if the heart and other body organs can smell the food we eat.
Peter Schieberle, Ph.D., an international authority on food chemistry and technology, stated at the 245th National Meeting & Exposition of the American Chemical Society held in New Orleans April 7 that scientists believed, for a very long time that the nose was the only organ in the body to have a sensing receptor known as olfactory receptors. They were surprised to find these olfactory receptors in the heart, lungs, blood cells and other body cells too.
"Our team recently discovered that blood cells -- not only cells in the nose -- have odorant receptors," Schieberle said. "In the nose, these so-called receptors sense substances called odorants and translate them into an aroma that we interpret as pleasing or not pleasing in the brain. But surprisingly, there is growing evidence that also the heart, the lungs and many other non-olfactory organs have these receptors. And once a food is eaten, its components move from the stomach into the bloodstream. But does this mean that, for instance, the heart 'smells' the steak you just ate? We don't know the answer to that question."
Addressing the question if these organs in our body can actually smell the food we consume, Schieberle said that it is still not clear if odor components once inside the body function in the same way as they do in the nose. However, he said his team is curious to find out about this and further studies on this will be conducted in the future.
