Sharpen Your Sense of Smell and Taste

20 strategies to protect your senses as you get older

More on:

• Your Medical Care
• Fight Disease
• Anti-Aging
• Mind & Body

Every Bite and Sniff

We all know that feeling of having a bad taste in our mouth, or the way a stuffy nose makes even the most fragrant garlic pizza taste like cardboard. But did you know that our sense of smell and taste naturally declines as we age?

Often the change is so gradual you barely notice it. That wouldn't be a problem, except that it can affect your health -- studies find people with impaired ability to smell and taste tend to follow less healthful diets. It also puts you in danger: Your sense of smell serves as an early warning system for things like rotten food and gas leaks.

Here's how to sustain smell and taste so that every bite (and sniff) tells you what you need to know:

1. Serve food that looks like itself. Forget fancy-schmancy presentation. If you're serving fish, keep it looking like a fish. Your sense of taste is stronger if your brain can connect what you're eating with how it looks.

2. Put on your seat belt. A common cause of loss of smell (which then directly affects taste) is automobile accidents, even low-speed crashes, says Alan Hirsch, M.D., neurological director of the Smell and Taste Treatment and Research Foundation in Chicago. Any impact can shift the brain within your skull, tearing delicate nerve fibers that connect your nose to your brain.

3. Go for a brisk, 10-minute walk or run. Our sense of smell is higher after exercise. Researchers suspect it might be related to additional moisture in the nose.

4. Drink a glass of water every hour or so. Dry mouth -- whether due to medication or simply dehydration -- can adversely affect your sense of taste, says Evan Reiter, M.D., an otolaryngologist at Virginia Commonwealth University's Eye & Ear Specialty Center in Richmond.

5. Shuck a dozen oysters. Among their other benefits, oysters are one of the highest food sources of zinc, and zinc deficiencies contribute to a loss of smell as well as taste.

6. Make a list of any medicines you're taking and ask your doctor about their effect on smell and taste. Hundreds of medications affect taste and smell, including statins, antidepressants, high blood pressure medications, and chemotherapy drugs like methotrexate, also used to treat rheumatoid arthritis. If your meds are on the list, talk to your doctor about possible alternatives or lower doses. Don't, however, stop taking your medication or cut your dosage on your own.

7. Stub out that cigarette and make it your last. Nothing screws up the smell receptors in your nose and the taste receptors on your tongue like cigarettes. Long-term smoking can even permanently damage the olfactory (a.k.a., sniffing) nerves in the back of your nose.

8. Eat only when you are hungry. Our sense of smell (and thus taste) is strongest when we're hungriest.

9. Humidify your air in the winter. Our sense of smell is strongest in the summer and spring, says Dr. Hirsch, most likely because of the higher moisture content in the air.

• 20 Ways to Combat Allergies
• Stop being sneezy with these simple strategies.
• 
• Host an Olive Oil Tasting
• Ideas for a heart-healthy soiree.
• 
• Talk Like a Wine Connoisseur
• Pick up the basics and you'll be ready for your own wine-tasting adventure.
• 
• Protect Your Hearing
• Hear a pin drop with these ear-improving ideas
• 
• Easy Ways to Improve Your Vision
• Learn how to keep your eyes in tiptop shape.
• 
• Quick and Affordable Tips to Look and Smell Radiant
• Look your best without breaking the bank.
• 

Sponsored Links