Diminished sense of smell may indicate imminent death

In the 1939 melodrama “Dark Victory,” Bette Davis plays a socialite with an inoperable brain tumor. At the film’s conclusion, a sudden loss of vision clues Davis’ character in to the fact that the end is near. According to a study published Wednesday in the online journal PLOS ONE, this classic movie would have been more realistic had the protagonist lost her sense of smell.

Olfactory dysfunction, the scientific term for a sub-par sniffer, is a strong indicator of imminent death, researchers found. In a study that began in 2005, scientists subjected 3,005 U.S. adults aged 57-87 to an odor identification test using felt tipped pens. Participants were exposed to an assortment of scents, including peppermint, leather and fish. They were then divided into three groups, based on their ability to correctly identify these scents– those with a normal sense of smell (normosmic), those whose sense of smell was somewhat diminished (hyposmic) and those who correctly identified only one scent or less (anosmic).

Five years later, the researchers caught up with their subjects, and found that 430 of the original participants were now deceased. After adjusting for factors including age and overall health, they concluded that anosmic individuals were four times as likely to have died than their normosmic peers. The mortality rate among the hyposmic group was also higher. “Anosmia was a markedly stronger risk factor than most chronic diseases,” the study even states.

To be clear, the researchers do not believe there is a direct correlation between olfactory dysfunction and death. Rather, a diminished sense of smell may be symptomatic of an overall slowing of cellular regeneration, indicating a decline in the body’s ability to repair itself. The researchers’ conclusion does suggest that scent tests may be a medically valuable tool for monitoring individuals overall health.

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