Posts tagged sense of smell

For older adults, being unable to identify scents is a strong predictor of death within five years, according to a study published October 1, 2014, in the journal PLOS ONE. Thirty-nine percent of study subjects who failed a simple smelling test died during that period, compared to 19 percent of those with moderate smell loss and just 10 percent of those with a healthy sense of smell.

The hazards of smell loss were “strikingly robust,” the researchers note, above and beyond most chronic diseases. Olfactory dysfunction was better at predicting mortality than a diagnosis of heart failure, cancer or lung disease. Only severe liver damage was a more powerful predictor of death. For those already at high risk, lacking a sense of smell more than doubled the probability of death.

"We think loss of the sense of smell is like the canary in the coal mine," said the study’s lead author Jayant M. Pinto, MD, an associate professor of surgery at the University of Chicago who specializes in the genetics and treatment of olfactory and sinus disease. "It doesn’t directly cause death, but it’s a harbinger, an early warning that something has gone badly wrong, that damage has been done. Our findings could provide a useful clinical test, a quick and inexpensive way to identify patients most at risk."

The study was part of the National Social Life, Health and Aging Project (NSHAP), the first in-home study of social relationships and health in a large, nationally representative sample of men and women ages 57 to 85.

In the first wave of NSHAP, conducted in 2005-06, professional survey teams from the independent research organization NORC at the University of Chicago used a well-validated test — adapted by Martha K. McClintock, PhD, the study’s senior author — for this field survey of 3,005 participants. It measured their ability to identify five distinct common odors.

The modified smell tests used “Sniffin’Sticks,” odor-dispensing devices that resemble a felt-tip pen but are loaded with aromas rather than ink. Subjects were asked to identify each smell, one at a time, from a set of four choices. The five odors, in order of increasing difficulty, were peppermint, fish, orange, rose and leather.

Measuring smell with this test, they learned that:

• Almost 78 percent of those tested were classified as “normosmic,” having normal smelling; 45.5 percent correctly identified five out of five odors and 29 percent identified four out of five.
• Almost 20 percent were considered “hyposmic.” They got two or three out of five correct.
• The remaining 3.5 percent were labelled “anosmic.” They could identify just one of the five scents (2.4%), or none (1.1%).

The interviewers also assessed participants’ age, physical and mental health, social and financial resources, education, and alcohol or substance abuse through structured interviews, testing and questionnaires. As expected, performance on the scent test declined steadily with age; 64 percent of 57-year-olds correctly identified all five smells. That fell to 25 percent of 85-year-olds.

In the second wave, during 2010-11, the survey team carefully confirmed which participants were still alive. During that five-year gap, 430 (12.5%) of the original 3005 study subjects had died; 2,565 were still alive.

When the researchers adjusted for demographic variables such as age, gender, socioeconomic status (as measured by education or assets), overall health, and race, those with greater smell loss when first tested were substantially more likely to have died five years later. Even mild smell loss was associated with greater risk.

"This evolutionarily ancient special sense may signal a key mechanism that affects human longevity," noted McClintock, the David Lee Shillinglaw Distinguished Service Professor of Psychology, who has studied olfactory and pheromonal communication throughout her career.

Age-related smell loss can have a substantial impact on lifestyle and wellbeing, according to Pinto, a member of the university’s otolaryngology-head and neck surgery team. “Smells impact how foods taste. Many people with smell deficits lose the joy of eating. They make poor food choices, get less nutrition. They can’t tell when foods have spoiled or detect odors that signal danger, like a gas leak or smoke. They may not notice lapses in personal hygiene.”

"Of all human senses," Pinto said, "smell is the most undervalued and underappreciated — until it’s gone."

Precisely how smell loss contributes to mortality is unclear. “Obviously, people don’t die just because their olfactory system is damaged,” McClintock said.

The research team, which includes biopsychologists, physicians, sociologists and statisticians, is considering several hypotheses. The olfactory nerve, the only cranial nerve directly exposed to the environment, may serve as a conduit, they suggest, exposing the central nervous system to pollution, airborne toxins, pathogens or particulate matter.

McClintock noted that the olfactory system also has stem cells which self-regenerate, so “a decrease in the ability to smell may signal a decrease in the body’s ability to rebuild key components that are declining with age and lead to all-cause mortality.”

(Source: uchospitals.edu)

Researchers at the Monell Center and collaborators have identified a protein that is critical to the ability of mammals to smell. Mice engineered to be lacking the Ggamma13 protein in their olfactory receptors were functionally anosmic – unable to smell. The findings may lend insight into the underlying causes of certain smell disorders in humans.

“Without Ggamma13, the mice cannot smell,” said senior author Liquan Huang, PhD, a molecular biologist at Monell. “This raises the possibility that mutations in the Ggamma13 gene may contribute to certain forms of human anosmia and that gene sequencing may be able to predict some instances of smell loss.”

Odor molecules entering the nose are sensed by a family of olfactory receptors. Inside the receptor cells, a complex cascade of molecular interactions converts information to ultimately generate an electrical signal. This signal, called an action potential, is what tells the brain that an odor has been detected.

To date, the identities of some of the intracellular molecules that convert odor information into an action potential remain a mystery. Suspecting that a protein called Ggamma13 might be involved, the research team engineered mice to be lacking this protein and then tested how the ‘knockout’ mice responded to odors.

Importantly, because the Ggamma13 protein plays critical roles in other parts of the body, the Ggamma13 ‘knockout’ was confined exclusively to smell receptor cells. This specificity allowed the researchers to characterize the effect of Ggamma13 deletion on the olfactory system without interference from changes in other tissues.

Both behavioral and physiological experiments revealed that the Ggamma13 knockout mice did not respond to odors. The findings were published in The Journal of Neuroscience.

In behavioral tests, control mice with an intact sense of smell were able to detect and retrieve a piece of buried food in less than 30 seconds. However, mice lacking Ggamma13 in their olfactory cells required more than 8 minutes to perform the same task. Both sets of mice were able to quickly locate the food when it was placed in plain sight.

A second set of experiments measured olfactory function on a physiological level. Using olfactory tissue from knockout and control mice, the researchers recorded electrical responses to 15 different odors. Responses from the Ggamma13 knockout mice were greatly reduced, suggesting that the olfactory receptors of these mice were unable to translate odor signals into an electrical response.

Together, the findings demonstrate that Ggamma13 is essential for mammals to smell odors and extend the current understanding of how olfactory receptor cells communicate information about odors to the brain. Future studies will seek to identify how Ggamma13 interacts with other molecules within the olfactory receptor.

“Loss of olfactory function can greatly reduce quality of life,” said Huang. “Our findings demonstrate the significant consequences when just one molecular component of this complex system does not function properly.”

(Source: monell.org)

The eyes sometimes have it, beating out the tongue, nose and brain in the emotional and biochemical balloting that determines the taste and allure of food, a scientist said here today. Speaking at the 245^th National Meeting & Exposition of the American Chemical Society (ACS), the world’s largest scientific society, he described how people sometimes “see” flavors in foods and beverages before actually tasting them.

“There have been important new insights into how people perceive food flavors,” said Terry E. Acree, Ph.D. “Years ago, taste was a table with two legs — taste and odor. Now we are beginning to understand that flavor depends on parts of the brain that involve taste, odor, touch and vision. The sum total of these signals, plus our emotions and past experiences, result in perception of flavors, and determine whether we like or dislike specific foods.”

Acree said that people actually can see the flavor of foods, and the eyes have such a powerful role that they can trump the tongue and the nose. The popular Sauvignon Blanc white wine, for instance, gets its flavor from scores of natural chemicals, including chemicals with the flavor of banana, passion fruit, bell pepper and boxwood. But when served a glass of Sauvignon Blanc tinted to the deep red of merlot or cabernet, people taste the natural chemicals that give rise to the flavors of those wines.

The sense of smell likewise can trump the taste buds in determining how things taste, said Acree, who is with Cornell University. In a test that people can do at home, psychologists have asked volunteers to smell caramel, strawberry or other sweet foods and then take a sip of plain water; the water will taste sweet. But smell bread, meat, fish or other non-sweet foods, and water will not taste sweet.

While the appearance of foods probably is important, other factors can override it. Acree pointed out that hashes, chilies, stews and cooked sausages have an unpleasant look, like vomit or feces. However, people savor these dishes based on the memory of eating and enjoying them in the past. The human desire for novelty and new experiences also is a factor in the human tendency to ignore what the eyes may be tasting and listening to the tongue and nose, he added.

Acree said understanding the effects of interactions between smell and vision and taste, as well as other odorants, will open the door to developing healthful foods that look and smell more appealing to finicky kids or adults.

(Source: portal.acs.org)