5 ms·
Losing the sense of smell predicts death within five years
- deleted 12y ago[deleted]
- pawelkomarnicki 12y agoI don't what to think about that, because due to severe sinusitis I kind of lost my smell sense when I was a teenager (I'm almost 30 now), yet I can smell pretty strong odours (mostly alcohol smell sensation and peppermint). It can't be really true that it's "5 years and you're dead" :D
- gchokov 12y agoNothing scientific in the "test". Looks like a "drama seeking" article to me.
- jonifico 12y agoAgreed. A little over the top for me to believe it.
- junto 12y agoFrom what I understand, the paper is suggesting that it is a statistical tendency rather than a hard and fast rule.
- goatforce5 12y agoThe people in the study were older than you are now, so you're good for a while yet.
- donquichotte 12y agoFrom the sampled individuals, they calculated: P(die within 5 years | healthy sense of smell in 1st test) = 0.1 P(die within 5 years | moderate sense of smell in 1st test) = 0.19 P(die within 5 years | bad sense of smell in 1st test) = 0.39
- nilkn 12y agoNotably, all participants were at least 57 years old.
- jonahx 12y agoThe predictive power of the diagnosis, according to the article, depends on the loss of the smell being caused by the body's failure to regenerate the tip of the olfactory nerve through new stem cells. In your case, the cause is entirely different, and so your loss of smell doesn't have the same meaning. For example, if someone had his olfactory nerve surgically removed, it obviously would not mean he was likely to die within five years.
- robinhouston 12y agoThe paper is open access: http://www.plosone.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0107541 http://www.plosone.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjourna...
- timboslice 12y agoThanks! > 3,005 community-dwelling adults aged 57–85 were studied in 2005–6 (Wave 1) and their mortality determined in 2010–11 (Wave 2). Olfactory dysfunction, determined objectively at Wave 1, was used to estimate the odds of 5-year, all cause mortality via logistic regression, controlling for demographics and health factors.
- uptown 12y agoPrevious discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8397264 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8397264
- simonbarker87 12y agoMy Grandmother lost her sense of smell at 20 and lived to 85 - Yes, anecdotes are not data but for those concerned, don't sweat it too much.
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- dang 12y agohttps://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8397264 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8397264