The human sense of smell is still much underappreciated, despite its importance for vital functions such as warning and protection from environmental hazards, eating behavior and nutrition, and social communication. We here approach olfaction as a sense of well-being and review the available literature on how the sense of smell contributes to building and maintaining well-being through supporting nutrition and social relationships. Humans seem to be able to extract nutritional information from olfactory food cues, which can trigger specific appetite and direct food choice, but may not always impact actual intake behavior. Beyond food enjoyment, as part of quality of life, smell has the ability to transfer and regulate emotional conditions, and thus impacts social relationships, at various stages across life (e.g., prenatal and postnatal, during puberty, for partner selection and in sickness). A better understanding of how olfactory information is processed and employed for these functions so vital for well-being may be used to reduce potential negative consequences.

中文翻译：

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通过营养和社会行为，嗅觉系统对人类福祉的重要性


尽管人类的嗅觉对于环境危害的警告和保护、饮食行为和营养以及社会交流等重要功能很重要，但它仍然被严重低估。我们在这里将嗅觉视为一种幸福感，并回顾了有关嗅觉如何通过支持营养和社会关系来促进建立和维持幸福感的现有文献。人类似乎能够从嗅觉食物线索中提取营养信息，这可以触发特定的食欲和直接的食物选择，但可能并不总是影响实际的摄入行为。除了食物享受之外，作为生活质量的一部分，嗅觉具有转移和调节情绪状况的能力，从而影响生命各个阶段的社会关系（例如，产前和产后、青春期、伴侣选择和疾病期间） 。更好地了解嗅觉信息是如何处理和用于这些对健康至关重要的功能的，可以用来减少潜在的负面后果。