If you have lost your sense of smell, you may be about to die

According to a new study, those people who have problems with their smell receptors can be at a significant risk of dying sooner than those with healthy nostrils. According to the study, older adults who have a reduced sense of smell to identify particular odours had an increase in their risk of dying during an average of their 4-year follow up.

In the study, the mortality rate of participants with the lowest scores on a 40-item smell test was 45 percent compared with 18 percent of the participants who had the highest scores.

 The study had included 1169 Medicare beneficiaries who had scratched and sniffed odorant strips from individuals and chose the best answer from 4 things listed as multiple-choice.

The lead author of the study, Davangere Devanand of the Annals of Neurology said that an increase in risk of death had increased progressively with a worse performance in the smell identification test and was reported to be the highest in those who had the worst ability to smell, despite adjusting for dementia and medical burden.

Devanand further added that the study was of older adults and so the question remains if young to middle-aged adults suffering from impaired potential to identify smell were at higher risk as they grew older or not.

Read more Health News.
Image source: Getty
Source: DNA