Do people lose their senses of smell and taste as they age?
Charles J. Wysocki, a neuroscientist at the Monell Chemical Senses Center in Philadelphia who studies individual variation in olfaction and chemical irritation, provides the following explanation. As people age they often complain about decreases–or even losses–in their abilities to taste a superb meal or appreciate a fine beverage. When people eat a meal, however, they often confuse or combine information from the tongue and mouth (the sense of taste, which uses three nerves to send information to the brain) with what is happening in the nose (the sense of smell, which utilizes a different nerve input). Its easy to demonstrate this confusion. Take a handful of jellybeans of different flavors into your hand and move them about while your eyes are closed. With your other free hand, pinch your nose closed. Now pop one of the jellybeans into your mouth and chew, without letting go of your nose. Can you tell what flavor went into your mouth? Probably not, but you most likely experienced
