A recent study from Griffith University in Australia suggests that picking your nose could affect your health. The study was published in the journal Scientific Reports.
The fact that the behavior is deemed disgusting, especially if it is practiced in public, is one of the primary reasons why people learn to quit doing it. Scientists have, however, discovered a major justification for abandoning this endeavor. () Â
According to new research, a microbe can enter a mouse’s brain through the olfactory nerve in the nose and produce indicators that can be used to diagnose Alzheimer’s disease.
Nose-picking can affect your brain
Researchers found that the olfactory nerve in the nose provides a quick channel to the brain that avoids the blood-brain barrier in their investigation on mice. This pathway can serve as a direct path for bacteria and viruses to reach the brain.
The co-author of the new study and professor James St. John, director of the Clem Jones Center for Neurobiology and Stem Cell Research, adds, “We’re the first to show that Chlamydia pneumoniae can go directly up the nose and into the brain where it can set off pathologies that look like Alzheimer’s disease. We saw this happen in a mouse model, and the evidence is potentially scary for humans as well.”
The research team discovered that Chlamydia pneumoniae, a form of bacteria that may cause pneumonia and other respiratory tract infections, used the nerve connecting the brain and nasal cavity as a direct route to the central nervous system.
In response, the brain’s cells began to produce amyloid beta protein, a crucial precursor to the onset of Alzheimer‘s disease.
Earlier studies support the results
The primary cause of Alzheimer’s disease may be the escape of a particularly harmful chemical into the bloodstream, according to research published last year. Beta-amyloids are found to form outside of the brain and are subsequently transported by lipoproteins through the bloodstream.
This study used mice as well and was written up in the Plos Biology journal. The researchers wrote, “This ‘blood-to-brain pathway’ is significant because if we can manage the levels in the blood of lipoprotein-amyloid and prevent their leakage into the brain, this opens up potential new treatments to prevent Alzheimer’s disease and slow memory loss.”
The team still needs to demonstrate that harmful viruses and bacteria can utilize the same route from the olfactory nerve in the nose to the brain in humans.
“We need to do this study in humans and confirm whether the same pathway operates in the same way. It’s research that has been proposed by many people, but not yet completed. What we do know is that these same bacteria are present in humans, but we haven’t worked out how they get there,” Prof. St. John makes a note.
