Older adults with a reduced ability to identify certain odours have an increased risk of dying within the next four years, an Indian-origin scientist has found.
The study included 1,169 older adults who scratched and sniffed individuals odourant strips and chose the best answer from 4 items listed as multiple-choice.
During an average follow-up of 4 years, the mortality rate was 45 per cent in participants with the lowest scores on a 40-item smell test, compared with 18 per cent of participants with the highest scores.
"The increased risk of death increased progressively with worse performance in the smell identification test and was highest in those with the worst smelling ability, even after adjusting for medical burden and dementia," said Dr Davangere Devanand, from the Division of Geriatric Psychiatry, Department of Psychiatry, College of Physicians and Surgeons at Columbia University.
"This was a study of older adults - the question that remains is whether young to middle-aged adults with impaired smell identification ability are at high risk as they grow older," he said.
The study was published in the journal Annals of Neurology.
