A clinical measurement of olfaction — or sense of smell — may be a useful indicator of health status in adults aged 65 and older, a new study by head and neck specialists suggests.
Researchers analyzed health data for more than 3,500 adults 40 years or older. They found that objective olfactory dysfunction was strongly linked to five-year mortality among the older participants — but not among adults aged 40 to 64.
The association remained after adjusting for factors including cognitive test scores and depression, reported Bozena Wrobel, M.D., an otolaryngologist from the University of Southern California, Los Angeles. There was no link between self-reported smell loss and mortality, she and her colleagues added.
Olfactory dysfunction is linked to a variety of health issues in older adults. Older adults with loss of smell are thought to be prone to malnutrition, for example, due to a resulting lack of interest in food. The condition also is tied to poorer quality of life, depressive symptoms, and with the development of Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s disease, Wrobel and colleagues wrote.
The results confirm prior findings and suggest that a further clinical workup for malnutrition, depression and neurodegenerative disease may be needed in adults diagnosed with loss of smell using a standardized test, they concluded.
Data was gleaned from the 2013-2014 National Health and Nutritional Examination Survey.
Full findings were published in JAMA Otolaryngology Head & Neck Surgery.
