Science
Recent scientific research has allowed researchers to find out how a person's sense of smell changes as they age. It turned out that olfactory receptor neurons in people aged 60 and older react differently to odor sources than do these same neurons in younger people. In fact, older people lose their ability to distinguish certain odors as they age. This, according to scientists, is fatal, since such a person may not smell a life-threatening chemical, or, for example, not identify a spoiled product and eat it. “We found clear signs that in people over 60 years of age, the ability of olfactory receptor neurons to respond to certain odors is changing,” said study leader, Ph.D. and Director of the Neuroscience Center at the University of Colorado School of Medicine, Professor Diego Restrepo ). — When we treated olfactory receptor neurons in young people with two different scents, some receptors responded to one smell and others to another. At the same time, older people had the same reaction to both odors. This makes it harder for older people to tell the difference between certain smells.”
According to a study recently published in a major scientific publication on the neurobiology of aging, people who lose their sense of smell as they age are in a risk group exposed to various negative health effects due to malnutrition. Eating disorders occur for the simple reason that people stop distinguishing similar odors. In addition, these people may lose the ability to smell spoiled food, as well as feel the leak of gas or other toxic fumes that are dangerous to health and life. Scientists came to this conclusion after a thorough study of 440 people as part of the experiment. Some of the volunteers who agreed to this study were under 45; others were over 60. It was during this study that scientists identified the inability of olfactory receptor neurons in elderly people to distinguish between certain odors, as well as derivatives of these odors.
Without resting on his laurels, Professor Restrepo decided to test another assumption: does a violation of the ability of olfactory receptor neurons to distinguish between certain odors affect the ability of olfactory receptor neurons distinguish between smells in general? To do this, Diego Restrepo, with the support of American researchers from the Monell Chemical Senses Center in Philadelphia, which studies sensations, arising under the influence of chemical stimuli, I began to study both age groups at the cellular level. “While cells from younger donors were extremely selective about the odors they responded to, cells from older donors mostly responded to aromatic ones stimuli with a complex structure in general, which indicates a loss of selectivity,” said Professor Restrepo. The scientist stressed that researchers expected to find fewer olfactory receptor neurons in older people, as this was seen as a weakening of the ability of such people respond to olfactory stimuli. In fact, as it turned out, the number of these neurons in older and younger people is identical, and we are talking only about the fact that neurons in older people are losing their selectivity. To date, researchers suggest that this phenomenon may be responsible for the overall loss of smell in some older people.