Taste and Smell Loss
taste and smell loss"Take time to stop and smell the roses," goes the saying.
That’s very good advice, but it’s impossible to follow if you’re losing your sense of smell.
If you don’t smell things as well as you once did, there could be many explanations. Advancing age can be a contributing factor, possibly because infection has taken its toll or because you’ve sniffed too many noxious fumes over the years. Moreover, you shouldn’t be surprised if you temporarily lose your sense of smell because you’ve had an infection such as a bad cold.
Head injury is another possible cause if the delicate nerves leading from your nose to your brain are damaged. Also, certain prescription drugs can rob you of some ability to enjoy the fragrance of flowers, perfume, or fresh-baked apple pie.
As smell slips away, your sense of taste may suffer, too. The two senses are so closely related that people who complain of not being able to smell often say that they also have trouble tasting.
Depending on the cause, disturbances of taste and smell are sometimes permanent. Yet you might regain these senses after a while, says Charles P. Kimmelman, M.D., associate professor of otolaryngology at Weill Medical College of Cornell University in New York City and attending physician at Manhattan Eye, Ear and Throat Hospital. If smell loss is linked to a head cold, for instance, you can expect your nose to work normally after you’ve shaken off the cold.
When the problems last longer, talk to your doctor. "Disturbances of the taste and smell senses are best treated by a physician," says Barbara Silbert, D.C., N.D., a chiropractor and naturopathic doctor in Newburyport, Massachusetts.
She adds, however, that people who are deficient in zinc often have taste and smell problems, and in those cases, supplementing with zinc is an excellent remedy to the problem.
Taste for Heavy Metal
Not having enough zinc can make smelling and tasting things like a festive holiday meal a real challenge. Here’s why: The cells in your tastebuds and nose that help you to smell depend on zinc. In fact, cells in the salivary glands make a zinc-dependent protein called gustin that is secreted into your saliva. An important contributor to your sense of taste, gustin helps develop cells that can distinguish among different flavors.
Although zinc deficiencies are pretty rare in the United States, it’s worth asking your doctor to test for a deficiency if you are experiencing taste and smell loss. Many things can lead to a deficiency, including poor eating habits, alcoholism, certain drugs, kidney disease, and the stress of surgery or serious burns.
"If I discover a zinc deficiency, I typically recommend 25 milligrams of zinc picolinate twice a day to start," says Dr. Silbert. Of course, you can also eat more of the foods that contain zinc. Your best bet is seafood such as cooked oysters and crab. Meats such as lean beef and lean pork also provide zinc, but they’re not really recommended because they are high in saturated fat. Other sources include eggs, whole grains, nuts, and yogurt. If you plan to take more than 20 milligrams of zinc a day, it’s best to do so under your doctor’s care.