New research suggests that losing the ability to smell properly as people age could be an indicator—or even a contributor—to developing heart failure.
This new study, published in the Journal of the American Heart Association, adds to existing findings on how poor sense of smell, also known as olfaction, could impact the health of aging adults.
The study’s lead author, Dr. Honglei Chen, a professor at Michigan State University, explains that a loss of smell is already known to be a warning sign for certain brain disorders like Parkinson’s disease and dementia.
However, his team wanted to explore whether this sensory issue might be connected to other health problems, particularly heart conditions.
Losing the sense of smell as people age is quite common. Research shows that nearly one in four individuals experience some level of olfactory impairment by the time they reach their early 50s. After the age of 80, this number increases to over half of the population.
The inability to smell can reduce the quality of life in many ways, such as diminishing the enjoyment of food and increasing risks related to safety, like not noticing spoiled food or a gas leak.
In addition to these risks, prior studies have shown that poor smell can indicate early cognitive decline. It is often linked to weaker overall cognitive performance and memory issues. Research has also found that it may signal diseases like Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s.
Losing the sense of smell has even been identified as a strong predictor of mortality in older adults, potentially indicating slowed cell regeneration or long-term exposure to harmful environmental factors.
Since brain disorders only account for about 22% of the higher death rate among older adults with a poor sense of smell, Dr. Chen and his team wanted to explore if other health conditions might be linked to this sensory decline.
They analyzed data from over 2,500 participants in the National Institute on Aging’s Health ABC Study. This study aimed to look at the connections between aging-related conditions, lifestyle factors, and changes in physical abilities.
All participants in this analysis were between 70 and 79 years old and were living independently when they joined the study in the late 1990s. The research team tracked them for up to 12 years after their sense of smell was tested in 1999 or 2000.
During this period, the researchers noted any heart attacks, strokes, chest pain, or deaths caused by heart problems. Heart failure cases were recorded only when participants were hospitalized for at least one night.
To test their sense of smell, participants were asked to identify 12 different odors from a list of four possible choices. They received one point for each correct answer, with a score of 0 to 12. A score of 8 or lower was considered a poor sense of smell.
The study found that participants with a lower sense of smell were roughly 30% more likely to develop heart failure compared to those with normal olfaction. However, there was no clear link between poor smell and other heart issues like heart disease or stroke.
Dr. Chen pointed out that it’s still uncertain whether a weak sense of smell is directly contributing to heart failure or merely predicting it. He suggests that it might be tied to an accelerated aging process, which is an area that needs further research.
Dr. Khadijah Breathett, an expert in advanced heart failure at Indiana University, weighed in on the findings. She emphasized that while the study showed a connection, it didn’t establish a cause-and-effect relationship.
She also questioned whether losing the sense of smell could be a marker for some other underlying biological process.
Dr. Breathett mentioned that heart disease is the main cause of heart failure, and since this study didn’t find a direct link between smell loss and heart disease, it raises more questions about how the two are related.
Additionally, Dr. Breathett wondered if there could be insights gained from people who lost their sense of smell due to COVID-19, as that symptom can persist for weeks or even longer in some cases.
However, the data in this study was collected before the COVID-19 pandemic, so this aspect remains unexplored.
The study did not prove a direct cause, but it opens the door to new areas of research. Understanding why smell loss might be connected to heart failure could potentially lead to new ways of improving care for older adults.
Researchers like Dr. Chen and Dr. Breathett believe that looking into these connections more deeply could reveal important health insights for the aging population.
If you care about heart health, please read studies that yogurt may help lower the death risks in heart disease, and coconut sugar could help reduce artery stiffness.
For more information about health, please see recent studies that Vitamin D deficiency can increase heart disease risk, and results showing vitamin B6 linked to lower death risk in heart disease.
The research findings can be found in the Journal of the American Heart Association.
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