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."
The study, "Olfactory Dysfunction Predicts 5-year Mortality in Older Adults," was funded by the National Institutes of Health — including the National Institute on Aging, the Office of Women's Health Research, the Office of AIDS Research, the Office of Behavioral and Social Sciences Research -- and the McHugh Otolaryngology Research Fund, the American Geriatrics Society, and the Institute of Translational Medicine at the University of Chicago.
Additional authors were Kristen E. Wroblewski, David W. Kern, and L. Philip Schumm, all from the University of Chicago. Linda Waite is the principal investigator of NSHAP, a transdisciplinary effort with experts in sociology, geriatrics, psychology, epidemiology, statistics, survey methodology, medicine, and surgery collaborating to advance knowledge about aging. Such mining of the interface of disciplines is the classic paradigm of research at the University of Chicago.
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