When Sense of Smell Goes Absent

Loss of smell affects the flavor of food, among other things. Sometimes a short course of anti-inflammatory medication can help bring it back.

Some say that smell, or olfaction, is our most primitive sense. It’s certainly one of the most neglected. Many a day goes by when we don’t much notice a smell of any kind, while our heads are filled with images from our eyes and sounds from our ears. Indeed, we seem intent on banishing smell from our lives. The typical office is scentless. Our food is wrapped so tightly that many supermarkets smell more of cleaner than of food. And, of course, there’s the running battle against body odor that we fight with showers, soap, and deodorants.

But losing our sense of smell proves again that Joni Mitchell was right: you don’t know what you’ve got till it’s gone. When people lose their sense of smell, one of the first things they notice is that food becomes less flavorful. Understandably, most think their taste buds have gone dead. But flavor is a tag-team of smell and taste, and when it disappears, loss of smell is more often the main factor.

Flavorless food takes away appetites, so weight loss, even malnutrition, can sometimes be traced back to loss of smell. Olfactory deficits can also have just the opposite effect: people put on weight because they eat too much in pursuit of pleasure from food that tastes bland.

Loss of smell can be dangerous if people fail to detect smoke from a fire or the odor of mercaptan, the chemical added to natural gas to make it smell. And for some, losing the ability to smell can be deflating, even depressing, because they feel cut off from the world and one of life’s sensations.