When do we lose our sense of taste?

Compared to other sensations (in particular smell) our taste sense is not very sensitive. It has been estimated that a person needs 25,000 times as much of a substance in the mouth to taste it as is needed by the smell receptors to smell it. However, despite this, the combination of the four types of taste buds responding to the basic tastes of salt, sour, bitter or sweet, enable a wide range of sensations to be determined as the brain analyzes the relative strength of the tastes. If we were to lose our sense of smell, almost all taste sensation would be lost as well. Eating oysters, for instance, where the smell is so important, would become a dull and totally ‘tasteless’ experience. That is why we sometimes lose our sense of taste when we have a cold because our nasal passages become blocked. You will gradually lose your sense of taste as you grow older, which is one reason why elderly people may no longer enjoy their food so much.

Fact File:

The human sense of smell is very poor compared to that of animals, such as dogs. Some dogs are able to identify and follow the smell of a person’s perspiration.

 

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