Drop Dead Healthy by A. Jacobs (books to read to increase intelligence .TXT) 📕

Once again, this whole health project is proving to be an exercise in radical humility. Contrary to what my mother told me, I’m not always above average. I’m not always Einstein doing physics or Michael Jordan playing basketball. And in some cases, I’m not even Michael Jordan playing minor league baseball during his ill-advised career switch.

The problem is, my chemical senses aren’t just dull. I’m blind to certain smells and tastes. I have trouble tasting umami, for instance. And I can’t smell something called “androstenone.”

I’m not alone. Fully 45 percent of Americans are genetically incapable of sensing androstenone. It’s a steroid that occurs in sweat, urine, and, oddly enough, pig saliva. Apparently it smells quite rank. I will never know. So enjoy that sweaty odor, you lucky bastards in the 55 percent of the population.

There’s a lot of variation in our abilities to taste and smell, much of it genetic. I had no idea until today that I am essentially smelling and tasting a different world from my friends.

Despite my low scores, I didn’t leave the Monell Center in a funk. The situation isn’t totally hopeless. I can take action. The scientists made two additions to my to-do list: sharpen my sense of smell, and use odors to help me relax. I’ll explain them in order:

Experiment 1: Sharpen my sense of smell

“There is an association between our ability to smell and our mental health,” says Dr. Pamela Dalton, a researcher at Monell. “It’s not a perfect correlation. But people who lose their sense of smell show signs of depression.”

She tells me that keeping your sense of smell sharp could help keep your brain healthy. “Exercise it like you would any other muscle.”

And what makes for a good odor workout?

“Go to your spice rack, and try to identify the bottles without looking.”

That’s my new favorite game. Julie hands me a bottle, I keep my eyes shut and take a deep sniff.

The first few times, everything smelled like nutmeg.

“Nutmeg,” I say.

“No, turmeric,” says Julie.

“Nutmeg,” I say.

“No, lemongrass.”

And so on. But I’ve done it twenty times now, and I’m scoring about 50 percent correct.

My nose is improving. I’ll likely never learn to smell androstenone. But I can become better at identifying the scents my nose already picks up. As one Monell researcher explained it to me, “You can’t make your car go faster, but you can become really good at obstacle courses.”

The average person smells about ten thousand odors, at least according to Nobel winners Richard Axel and Linda Buck. Nobody’s quite sure. Unlike taste, it’s not a relatively simple matter of five basic flavors. It’s a complex, not-fully-understood system that, we think, involves nasal receptors recognizing the different chemicals’ spatial features.

However it works, I find I’m noticing a lot more smells out in the world—both for good (the sweet potatoes at the corner restaurant) and ill (the smell of chlorine that permeates the local Jewish Community Center).

I’ve also noticed that enthusiastic smelling has perils. When I met a friend for lunch and took in too deep a draft of air, he looked at me suspiciously and said: “Are you sniffing me?” Kind of.

Experiment 2: Relax

The olfactory part of the brain is tucked into the ancient section, the so-called lizard brain, which means it is tangled up with the emotions. Smell can bring on powerful feelings, as anyone who has read Proust’s books or at least his Wikipedia page knows.

Which smells and which emotions? Depends on the individual. Aromatherapy goes wrong here, say Monell researchers. Aromatherapists make sweeping statements like “vanilla will relax you.” But it depends on experience.

“You can’t say ‘lemons are invigorating,’” says Stein. “If you grew up walking through a lovely garden filled with roses, you’ll have positive feelings when you smell roses. But if you are first exposed to the smell of a rose at your grandmother’s funeral, it’s the opposite.”

Dalton, for instance, says the smell of diesel puts her in a happy mood. As does a lemon-rose scent.

“I travel a lot,” says Dalton. “And when I’m in an anonymous hotel room, falling asleep can be an issue, so I bring a safe odor with me.” (Wisely, she goes with lemon-rose instead of diesel.)

My scented sedative of choice: almond. Maybe it was the marzipan that my dad always brought home. Who knows? But the scent of almond makes stress melt away and lifts the mild depression.

Inspired by Dalton, I’ve started carrying a small bottle of almond oil next to the Purell and miniature fork in my pocket. I unscrew it on the subway and inhale a few nostrilsful. Passersby probably think I’m huffing glue, but I’m too relaxed to care.

Checkup: Month 22

     Weight: 159

     Average minutes of self-massage per day: 4

     Average hours of sleep per night: 7

     Meals incorporating cinnamon (which can increase insulin receptivity): 1 in 3

My nose adventure was helpful. I’m back to my spinach salads, my meditation, my modified Bass Method. If I squint, I can see the project’s finish line off in the distance; I’m trying to finish in two years, for the sake of my sanity and my publisher’s.

I’m not free of morbid thoughts, though. One of my big preoccupations is this: What if it’s all for naught? What if my DNA has doomed me, and I have some hidden disease that will strike me dead before year’s end?

This anxiety inspired me to spit into a skinny tube and send it off to a lab in California.

I just got back my results this month. The proper reaction would be gratitude to my parents for bestowing upon me relatively decent DNA.

There are no huge problems. I have a slightly elevated risk of having a stroke, arthritis, and restless legs syndrome. I’m hypersensitive to warfarin blood thinner. But overall, the test says I’m free of huge risk factors for horrible diseases.

So gratitude would be appropriate. Instead, I keep focusing on one result. That I have gene marker rs174575, Genotype AA. Which means, according to the testing service’s website: “Being breastfed raised