Research being done in Indiana says your sense of smell may give doctors clues as to whether you’ll grapple with Alzheimer’s disease. Araceli Gomez-Aldana with Side Effects Public Media reports.

There is no cure for Alzheimer’s disease. So researchers are focusing on ways to identify early signs and create treatments before dementia sets in. Dr. Shannon Risacher is one of them.

“The test that we use is what’s called an olfactory identification test, it’s essentially a scratch and sniff kind of style test.”

Riscaher leads a study at Indiana University School of Medicine. She looks at how people’s sense of smell is connected to Alzheimer’s disease.

“What we wanted to do, was look at whether or not the performance on this test was linked to certain proteins known to be involved in the Alzheimer’s disease in the brain.”

The findings suggest, there’s an association between a low score on the “scratch and sniff” test and protein that accumulates in regions of the brain where Alzheimer’s tends to show up. Risacher says the smell test could be an early screening tool.

The study also found that the sense of smell can be associated with atrophy in certain areas of the brain.

Dr. Evan Fletcher works in the the Imaging of Dementia and Aging lab, or IDeA Lab, as a project scientist with the Department of Neurology at the University of California Davis School of Medicine. He says the study’s findings are exciting.

“The study is showing that you could have an early test that might alert somebody to further investigate it.” Fletcher said. “But right now it’s (the study’s findings) too early to say that anything is definitive.”