Your nose knows death is imminent Losing the sense of smell predicts death within five years,

[adirondacker]

according to new research.

Mo Costandi

"Until as recently as 1987, British coal pits employed caged canaries as sentinels that alerted miners to the presence of poisonous gases. Being more sensitive to them than we are, the birds would get distressed before the gases reached levels that are dangerous to humans, giving the miners time to evacuate and avoid suffocation.

According to new research, the sense of smell is the canary in the coalmine of human health. A study published today in the open access journal PLOS ONE, shows that losing one’s sense of smell strongly predicts death within five years, suggesting that the nose knows when death is imminent, and that smell may serve as a bellwether for the overall state of the body, or as a marker for exposure to environmental toxins.

The study involved more than 3,000 participants, all of them between 57 and 85 years old, from the National Social Life, Health, and Aging Project (NSHAP), a longitudinal study of factors affecting the well-being of older people living in America.

In 2005-6, Jayant Pinto of the University of Chicago and his colleagues asked all the participants to perform a simple test that involved identifying five common odours (rose, leather, fish, orange, and peppermint), using the number of incorrectly identified odours as a score of the severity of smell loss."

<SNIP>

http://www.theguardian.com/science/neurophilosophy/2014/oct/01/your-nose-knows-death-is-imminent

I wonder how many people realize the have lost their sense of smell.

[Feral Child]

1. Mine is minimal.

65. It's been pretty much absent since my 40s. Years of smoking, nose broken twice (bone spur occluding one sinus was removed @ 45), some cocaine usage (30 to 31).

I guess the trauma renders my "alarm" pretty useless.

Carry on...

[yeoman6987]

2. I agree

I don't see what good this study is except to scare and overburden already overworked doctors, but maybe that is the point.

[Feral Child]

9. It probably has some validity,

but doubtful value. It's not like your doctor can stop your aging.

Actually, I'm a bit puzzled why anybody gave a grant for this research.

[adirondacker]

4. There is always going to be outlier conditions. I've had allergies all of my life which impedes my

sense of smell on some occasions more than others. I don't think it takes away from the validity of the study, since those conditions were more than likely omitted.

[Feral Child]

8. I was just messin' about.

I think the study validates common sense. All our senses diminish as we age and the sense of smell seems a likely harbinger.

[NV Whino]

3. Many times loss of smell comes from tiny, unnoticed strokes.

Which occur mostly in older people. 3000 is a fair sampling, but there are many factors that contribute to loss of smell. I would take this study with a grain of salt.

[adirondacker]

7. I thought this hypothesis was interesting...

"The tip of the olfactory nerve, which contains the smell receptors, is the only part of the human nervous system that is continuously regenerated by stem cells. The production of new smell cells declines with age, and this is associated with a gradual reduction in our ability to detect and discriminate odours. Loss of smell may indicate that the body is entering a state of disrepair, and is no longer capable of repairing itself."

Albeit I can understand your position. Both my mother and grandfather who developed dementia lost their sense of taste/smell near their diagnosis. They both outlived the 5 year threshold, but still Curious.

[Thirties Child]

5. Losing sense of smell can also predict Parkinson's

My sister lost her sense of smell 20 years ago, was diagnosed with Parkinson's last summer. I've read a lot about Parkinson's, losing the sense of smell is one of the prime indicators. But not always. My husband was diagnosed Tuesday, can still smell.

[SheilaT]

6. Somehow to me the words

"imminent" and "five years" hardly mean the same thing.

I also suspect that for most people the decline in sense of smell is somewhat gradual, as is hearing loss, and so it would be rather tricky to put any kind of number on when death might occur.

[malthaussen]

10. Five years is "imminent?"

I'll agree with Sheila T.

-- Mal

[rhett o rick]

11. I rarely have a sense of smell. I really only notice it when I regain it. It comes and goes

and has for many years. I wonder what that means.

[no_hypocrisy]

12. You'd notice a simultaneous loss of the sense of taste.

The ability to taste is dependent upon sense of smell.

If food becomes relatively tasteless, this could be a sign of the above referenced condition(s).

[politicat]

13. By this, spouse should be dead.

Spouse has genetic limitations on his sense of smell. Has never once smelled skunk; neither have his mother or sister. Had almost no reaction to the tear gas or pepper gas chamber during his time in the army. Thinks the Scoville scale should start about 45,000 units, because anything south of that is just a pepper. Munches jalapeños as snack foods, but prefers habeneros because they're a sweeter pepper. Has a limited sense of taste.

He's had most of these issues all of his life. Some is genetic, some is the result of allergies and permanently fubar'ed sinuses. And some is the result of getting a face full of thai bird pepper steam in the face a few years ago.

Anosmia is no fun, but lethal? Maybe as a diagnostic, but anosmia is a lot more complicated than just the nerve, just the perception, just the stem cells.