does your sense of smell weaken as you get older?

[shijinn]

i ask this because anecdotally, it always seems to be the older people that use overpowering hair wax, overpowering perfume or overpowering whatever. is it a case of them needing extra doses because they don't smell as much or is it just a 'generation' thing?

[StarvingButStrong]

Yes, definitely their sense of smell weakens. Besides the overuse of perfume and such, it also can lead to that 'old people smell' many elderly people develop. They can no longer smell very well, and so can get the idea that, as one old lady told me, 'after I was 60 I found my sweat didn't smell any more, so I stopped having to use deoderants.' Or take very many baths, either, given the near gag-inducing odor of her.

The sense of taste weakens, too. Which can lead to their not eating enough (nothing tastes very good any more.) Or it can make their cooking problematic for others. For example, my grandmother always seasoned 'to taste', which meant that eating at her house came to be an ordeal when she'd gotten into her 70s.

[Scarlett67]

Yes, according to the anatomy & physiology textbook on my desk at the moment.

[Blonde]

My sense of smell is tied to the tides of the the ocean, as it were (TMI)

[samclem]

My 11 year-old daughter can smell and taste such subtleties I can't believe. I'm 59, and she blows me away. Is it because I'm old? I can't say.

[flickster]

Couldn't have anything to do with all that stuff we put up our noses when we were younger could it?

[Tanach]

Don't you just hate it when the jokes rattle on forever and you are no closer to an answer to your OP?

With that said, all I can smell is the feces the monkey mule is flinging.

http://www.jsonline.com/Alive/news/0201smell.asp

This suggests that it is not a loss of sense of smell but an adaptation in olfactory sensors that decrease the ability to distinguish between odors thus making them less intense

[David Simmons]

I don't know about anyone else but I have practically lost all smell sense. Only quite strong smells penetrate.

And a lot of things are relatively taseless because smell is a good sized part of taste.

Birthday 3 December 1922.

[TroubleAgain]

You should also remember that smoking, especially long-term, is also said to reduce both sense of smell and sense of taste.

[shijinn]

Originally Posted by Tanach

... Don't you just hate it when the jokes rattle on forever and you are no closer to an answer to your OP? ...

nah, the OP is more rant than question, hence MPSIMS.

... http://www.jsonline.com/Alive/news/0201smell.asp

This suggests that it is not a loss of sense of smell but an adaptation in olfactory sensors that decrease the ability to distinguish between odors thus making them less intense.

the article mentioned that the sense of smell wane with age in complicated ways; increased adaptation in olfactory sensors, a higher threshold for noticing a smell, and a decreased ability to identify a smell.

which all adds up to one's loss of sense of smell.



'old people smell' ^^;

[Kalhoun]

Originally Posted by StarvingButStrong

Yes, definitely their sense of smell weakens. Besides the overuse of perfume and such, it also can lead to that 'old people smell' many elderly people develop. They can no longer smell very well, and so can get the idea that, as one old lady told me, 'after I was 60 I found my sweat didn't smell any more, so I stopped having to use deoderants.' Or take very many baths, either, given the near gag-inducing odor of her.

The sense of taste weakens, too. Which can lead to their not eating enough (nothing tastes very good any more.) Or it can make their cooking problematic for others. For example, my grandmother always seasoned 'to taste', which meant that eating at her house came to be an ordeal when she'd gotten into her 70s.

My husband just informed his mother that her house smells like Old PeopleTM. And it does. We can't quite pinpoint where it turned, but it's definitely "one of those houses" now.

I think old people lose their sense of smell, and I think that's part of the reason elderly people seem to succumb to fires (partly because of inability to move quickly, but partly because they can't tell the place is on fire as quickly as those who can smell stuff better).