Sometimes, fragrances do not work through smelling, but one must rather inhale them, eat them, or rub them into the skin. Many people suffer from high blood pressure. Not a particularly romantic idea: Our heart’s blood is not only shaped by passion, but also by a lot of blood fats. In the gut, enzymes and microorganisms help to break down the fats from food into different lengths of fatty acids and distribute them as energy suppliers via the blood throughout the body. For fatty acids, there are different olfactory receptors in the nose, with which we can distinguish olive, coconut or sunflower oil by smell. We have found the same “fat receptors” in the kidney, and now also in the heart. In the kidney, they welcome short-chain fatty acids and are—although not always to our advantage—involved in the release of the blood pressure-increasing hormone renin. Our food intake can thus influence blood pressure—with the help of olfactory receptors. If you destroy these olfactory receptors in mice, it leads to permanently low blood pressure, as shown in experiments at Johns Hopkins University. Could we therefore fight high blood pressure by blocking the fatty acid receptor in the kidney? After all, from the nose, we know: There is always a specific activating scent, but also a blocking one.