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Interesting - I don't have a sense of smell (and never have). I don't think I'm at risk of dying from that, however, barring an undetected gas leak. Loss of s
by cdjk 12y ago
Interesting - I don't have a sense of smell (and never have). I don't think I'm at risk of dying from that, however, barring an undetected gas leak.
Loss of sense of smell is fairly serious, though, so this isn't too surprising.
- riffraff 12y agoyou don't have a sense of smell? How is this called? Do you actually never smell anything or is it just very very weak? Does it also mean that when eating you basically couldn't tell between smoked herrings and cheese other than by level of saltiness/texture? I hope I am not unpolite in asking and please forgive my curiosity, I've never heard of "congenital olfactive loss" and my mind was just blown.
- cokernel 12y ago> you don't have a sense of smell? How is this called? Anosmia. http://www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/~sgtatham/smell.html http://www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/~sgtatham/smell.html
- cdjk 12y agoIt's not impolite to ask - I don't mind answering questions about it. "Congenital Anosmia" is the correct term. It's fairly serious when someone loses their sense of smell, and can cause weight loss and depression. It can also be a symptom of some fairly serious conditions (e.g. Parkinson's). For food - I prefer strong flavors (smoked salmon, capers, onions). Subtle flavors like spices are lost on me - basil, spinach, and mint all taste the same. Cheeses can be strong - I think I could tell the difference between blue cheese and provolone, but I haven't done an experiment. I'll have to try that sometime. It is possible I have a very week sense of smell. I can kind of smell coffee, and there are a few times I've smelled an orange, but that hasn't been reproducible. My dog got sprayed by a skunk one time, and I couldn't smell that, so I think it's accurate to say I don't have a sense of smell. I can "smell" things like vinegar and bleach, but I think that's the trigeminal nerve. I can't tell the difference between white vinegar and balsamic vinegar, however. My mom can't smell either - nor could her dad.
- barclay 12y agoSuper interesting. I've also got no sense of smell, though my ENT thinks it was due to an accident I had as a baby (fell face first onto broken glass), that severed the nerve. I can smell absolutely nothing (not gas, not coffee, nada)... but, on the other hand, have a really strong sense of taste. Maybe this is what's leaning the doctor to that.
- beachstartup 12y agothanks for sharing, that's super interesting. just one question since you mentioned salmon and cheeses: do you get the bacon flavor/smell ??? that's a favorite aroma for a lot of people.
- cdjk 12y agoI like bacon, but it's not my favorite food. It's also never triggered what I think of as a smell, like coffee does sometimes, and oranges have done a couple times. So I don't think I'm getting any of the aroma.
- riffraff 12y agothank you very much, yours (and others') replies were very interesting.
- jghn 12y agoA good friend of mine has no sense of smell* - she's always been observed by people to be a picky eater with odd eating habits. Over time it all started to make sense. She clearly organizes things by taste bud taste and doesn't really like mixing flavors, e.g. anything with a sweet component she doesn't like unless it's a dessert, even if it's a subtle sweetness. She can pick up on various ingredients, but she describes them in ways that are different from most people. For instance, garlic is a 'sweet' flavor to her. As with any lack of sense situation, it's difficult to really discuss with someone as the one person has absolutely no frame of reference, but from observation I've been able to see how things work. One amusing anecdote was when we went over and she was making a cake. "What's that burning?" we asked. She had taken it out of the oven and put on a burner which was actually on. Well, the bottom half of the cake was burned to a crisp and she had no idea it was happening. * Well she thought she had 0% sense of smell until one day she was working in a city-wide open sewer pit in a third world country. She said that she detected something unpleasant there that she thinks was a smell. So it would seem that it's really a super-super-super-super poor sense of smell.
- cdjk 12y agoI'm the opposite - I'm a very non-picky eater, and always have been. Mixed flavors don't bother me either.
- jrapdx3 12y agoWell, me too. Never have been able to detect odors anywhere near to normal degree. So I'd fail the test for "peppermint, fish, orange, rose and leather" miserably. FWIW humans rely much less on sense of smell than many other creatures. Interestingly, animals with poorer odor detection tend to have better vision. Raptors have excellent vision and aren't reliant on smell to detect prey. Human vision is also well-developed, the only trichromats among the great apes. Goes to show, "tests" don't always apply in each and every instance.
- deeviant 12y agoThe research looks at loss of smell, not never having a (good) sense of smell as an indicator.