BSP President Selects Abscent for Charity of the Year

BSP president Peter Malton has selected Abscent, an organization that helps individuals with loss of smell work through smell training, as his charity of the year.
BSP president Peter Malton has selected Abscent, an organization that helps individuals with loss of smell work through smell training, as his charity of the year.

The British Society of Perfumers (BSP) has announced new president Peter Malton has selected Abscent as his chosen charity of the year. Abscent is a charity set up to help those who have lost their sense of smell and work to help these people with smell training.

Smell training has been demonstrated in over a dozen scientific studies to be of benefit for people who have lost their sense of smell after a virus or injury. It used to be thought that it was only for people who had some natural recovery already and could experience some smell messages.

Now, it's known that if people start training immediately after the virus has cleared or the injury has taken place, they can improve their chances of smell recovery. This goes for post-viral and head injury patients.

While smell training is not a cure, it is a way of amplifying recovery. Every time it's done, participants are stimulating the olfactory nerves that help them smell.

“I think that the most important message is that smell training is not a far-fetched notion,” Nancy Rawson, Ph.D., cell biologist at the Monell Chemical Senses Center, said. “It is based on years of learning how the olfactory and nervous systems work, and specifically, how nerve cells—and especially olfactory nerve cells—are generated or maintained. Think of it as physiotherapy for your nose.”

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