London, Aug 13 (ANI): Just sniffing a new weight loss system, or for that matter peppermint, can appease your craving to eat more and can thus help you get that beach body that you always wanted.

A new weight-loss system, called Sensa, has swept the US as it allows you to keep eating your favourite foods but in small portions.

Sensa, launched last summer, does not forbid any foods like Atkins, the F-Plan or the Cabbage Soup Diet.

In fact, it makes you eat less of whatever is on the plate in front of you.

Sensa Tastants are small granules that you sprinkle on everything you eat in the same way you might sprinkle salt and pepper on savoury foods or sugar on cakes and puddings.

Dr Alan Hirsch, the scientist behind Sensa, said that the sprinkles make you feel fuller faster by stimulating the part of the brain that tells your body it’s time to put down the fork-all thanks to their ability to enhance both the taste smell of your food.

“What Sensa does is work to enhance the sensory experience of food so you feel satisfied with less,” The Daily Express quoted Sensa’s Kimberly Tobman as saying.

In the longer term, Sensa users learn how much food they really need as opposed to the oversized portions they may be used to.

Other than Sensa, there are other products, which have the same effect on a person’s appetite.

SlimScents, for example, is an aromatherapy diet pen filled with fruity or minty smells and sniffed before meals.

Aroma Patch is worn on the hand, wrist or chest and provides a regular whiff of vanilla.

All these products work on the principle that strong smells trick our brains into thinking we are full.

Dr Mark Cohen, founder of SlimScents, has guaranteed that his product works, and has even offered it free for six months or until a user loses 2.5 per cent of their body weight.

However, Dr Bryan Raudenbush, an associate professor of psychology at the Wheeling Jesuit University in West Virginia, has claimed that smelling peppermint scent could result in weight loss.

His study revealed that subjects who inhaled peppermint before eating consumed on average 1,800 calories fewer over the course of a week than normal.

He said that “peppermint scent can be used to decrease appetite, decrease hunger cravings and help people consume fewer calories which may lead to weight reduction”.

But he believes that more research is needed before the connection between scents and long-term weight reduction is properly proven. (ANI)