So just because we can smell things doesn’t mean we’re all a little bit psychic. However, according to researchers, older people may be able to smell their remaining years.
In a 2014 study, the researchers stated, “sought to determine if olfactory dysfunction is a harbinger of 5-year mortality.” They discovered that losing one’s sense of smell is “an even stronger predictor of when a person will likely die.”
In point of fact, the authors of this study assert that olfactory dysfunction is a more reliable predictor than “heart failure, cancer, or lung disease.” Wow!
Lead author Dr. Jayant Pinto, an associate professor of surgery at the University of Chicago, stated, “We think [the] loss of sense of smell is like the canary in the coal mine” in a statement that was obtained by Live Science. “Although it does not directly result in death, it is a harbinger—an early indication that a serious error has been made and that harm has been done.”
To arrive at this conclusion, the study examined a “nationally representative sample of older American adults.” The community housed 3,005 adults between the ages of 57 and 85.
The adult subjects were examined for the first time in 2005–6 and their mortality was determined in 2010–11. “Peppermint, fish, orange, rose, and leather” were the five smells that were requested of each adult participant.
A “normal sense of smell” was demonstrated by the fact that 78% of the participants were able to identify at least four of the five odors accurately. A final 3.5 percent of respondents were unable to correctly identify any or only one of the five odors, while approximately 20% correctly identified two or three odors.
430 adults had passed away five years later, it was discovered. Adults with “significant loss of smell” accounted for 39% of those deaths.
The study also found that only 10% of the adults who died had taken a smell test just five years prior, and that 19% of the adults who died had a moderate loss of smell.
In a statement that was also obtained by Live Science, the study’s co-author and professor of psychology at the University of Chicago, Martha McClintock, stated, “Obviously, people don’t die just because their olfactory system is damaged.”
However, it is believed that “a decline in the ability to smell may be a sign of what McClintock referred to as a decline in the body’s ability to restore key components that deteriorate with age, which causes death from other causes.”
McClintock went on to say that olfactory dysfunction “could be a sign of slowed cellular regeneration, or it could be the result of years of exposure to toxic environmental exposures.”
What a fascinating concept!