Exposure to chemotherapy can change “chemical tags” in our DNA. These tags don’t change the actual DNA, but they can affect how easily the information on DNA is read and used. In a study with 125 breast cancer patients, researchers found 141 regions where tags have been added to or removed from DNA after chemotherapy. These changes were related to our ability to sense and detect smells. The study was confirmed with a larger group of treated and untreated patients. The findings suggest that chemotherapy might affect our sense of smell by modifying the behavior of specific genes. This discovery helps us understand the biological underpinnings of why loss of smell is a common side effect associated with this cancer treatment.

Read more: https://breast-cancer-research.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s13058-023-01730-4