Tel Aviv
People born without the sense of smell breath differently, according to a new study.
The study published in Nature Communications Journal said those with the condition anosmia have a different breathing pattern than those with functioning olfactory systems.
To reach this conclusion, researchers from the Weizmann Institute of Science in Israel examined 21 people born with anosmia and 31 who had normal smell capabilities.
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Tacking their breathing patterns for 24 hours with airflow measurement devices, they found that those with sense of smell took more frequent sniffs, especially in environments with different odours.
The participants went through their normal daily lives while wearing the devices fitted into their nostrils to measure their airflow.
The findings suggest that sniffing is a response to detect smells.
Those with anosmia exhibited more pauses in their breathing when awake, and also had lower airflow rates during exhalation.
The different breathing patterns were present during sleep and even when external smells were consistent, found the study.
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But how are some people without a sense of smell?
“There’s this notion that this sense is completely unimportant, and yet if you lose it then a lot of bad things happen,” Noam Sobel, a co-author of the research, was quoted as saying in The Guardian.
While much of it is congenital, the loss of small has also been linked to various physical and mental health issues like depression.
In recent years, many people infected with Covid lost their sense of smell.
Though the study used machine learning to achieve an 83 per cent accuracy, the sample size is still small.
It nevertheless said that respiratory patterns could significantly impact physical and mental wellbeing.
(With inputs from agencies)