Do Blood Cells 'Smell' Food? The Nose isn't the Only One that Knows

The spicy scent of a cinnamon roll and the smoky smell of a freshly brewed cup of coffee may not just be able to be sensed by our noses. New research suggests that the cells in our bodies may actually have the same receptors for sensing odors that exist in the nose.

The nose is equipped with special cells in the mucus-covered olfactory epithelium. These cells are essentially docking ports for airborne chemical compounds that are responsible for odors in the air. When the molecules connect with the receptors, a chain of biochemical events cause the brain to register the smell.

But how do our cells "smell?" The researchers discovered that blood cells also have the same odorant receptors that the nose possesses. In fact, there's a growing body of research that seems to suggest that the heart, lungs and many other organs also have these receptors.

In order to make their findings, the researchers isolated primary blood cells from human blood samples. In one experiment, they placed an attractant odorant compound on one side of a partitioned multi-well chamber and blood cells on the other side. Surprisingly, they found that the blood cells were attracted and moved toward the odor.

Currently, the researchers are studying exactly why chemically some odors smell pleasing while others don't. The receptors that the nose uses are called G-protein-coupled receptors. Essentially, these receptors translate these sensations into a perception in the brain that tells it about the qualities of a food. Of about 1,000 receptors in the human body, 800 of these are G-protein-coupled receptors. Half of the G-protein-coupled receptors sense and translate aromas, but only 27 taste receptors exist.

"Once odor components are inside the body, however, it is unclear whether they are functioning in the same way as they do in the nose," said Peter Schieberle, an international authority on food chemistry and technology and one of the researchers, in a press release. "But we would like to find out."

More research needs to be conducted in order to see exactly how these receptors function inside the body, but the fact remains that they're there. Whether or not your heart could "smell" a steak, though, is something that remains to be seen.

The findings were announced at the 245^th National Meeting & Exposition of the American Chemical Society, the world's largest scientific society.