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MayoClinic.orgWhy You Might Be Losing Your Sense of Taste As Your Age
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Have you noticed your sense of taste changing as you age? Doctors say certain medications and environmental factors can affect taste. While our mouth has about 9,000 taste buds, it only perceives five elements – sweet, sour, bitter, sale and umami. Our nose helps us distinguish flavors because of its hundreds of olfactory receptors. “If you’re eating strawberry ice cream, your tongue will tell you it’s sweet, but it won’t know the flavor,” said Dr. Erin O’Brien, a rhinologist at Mayo Clinic. “The nose tells us it’s strawberry. That’s the difference between taste and flavor.” If you are suffering from lack of taste and flavor, doctors recommend adding extra herbs and spices or more colorful ingredients to food.
My husband lost his sense of taste 12 years (he can only taste a couple of things) ago. Needless to say, he also can’t smell. We don’t know if it was due to his age (at the time he was 51) or, perhaps, medications.
Around 1980, I knew a Dr. Dick Doty from the Hospital of U. Of Penn. in Phila.He studied smell and taste. He may be @ 70 now but ?He was creative.Enjoy Holiday HugsMarian
@charlena, I too have lost most taste and odor sensations, and my doctor(s) say it’s due mainly to age (I’m 81), but they said some of the symptoms might be attributable to careless prescriptions from poorly equipped physicians. I note that your husband was 51 (now 63) and has been denied the benefits of taste and smell for a dozen years. I’d check his medication regimen back then and follow-up with a study of their side-effects, then a conversation with your doctor (or two, if the first conversation is unsatisfying).