①Cutting down fatty food or exercising more are the most popular ways to lose weight, but have you ever thought about whether our noses play a part in our weight?
②According to a recent study, not being able to smell our food before eating it may cause us to lose weight.
③A team of scientists at the University of California Berkeley, US, came to their conclusion(结论) after studying the result of smell and diet(饮食) on a group of mice. Henry, the lead of the study, said he first believed that mice with no sense of smell didn't want to eat as much food as the normal mice and end up eating less and became thinner. However, it was discovered that if the mice were unable to smell their food, they didn't put on weight.
④To reach this conclusion, they did an experiment(实验). The first group of the mice was in normal condition. But in the second group, they broke some smelling neuron(神经元) of several mice by using virus (病毒), so their ability to smell was "switched off(关掉)". Both of the two groups were fed the same amounts (数量) of fatty food. At the end of the experiment, those with their smelling ability switched off had not put on weight, while the first group had put on the pounds. The researches also showed that "supersmellers" mice put on the most weight.
⑤That is to say, even if the mice were given the same amount of food, the ones with smelling problems put on less weight. In fact, "Sensory systems(感官系统) play a role in metabolism (新陈代谢). Weight gain(增加) isn't only about the calories (卡路里) taken in; it also has something to do with how those calories are perceived(识别). " Henry told the news.
⑥If it is true in humans, perhaps we can actually make a kind of medicine that doesn't change the smell of people but still stops that metabolic circuitry (线路). That will be amazing. In the future, the findings could play a role in solving health problems such as overweight. In the meantime, however, getting plenty of physical exercise and eating the right foods are still important ways to keep our bodies in shape.