Every other Friday on Morning Edition, the Outside/In team answers a question from a listener about the natural world.
This week, Maria Soledad sent us a question via Outside/In's Facebook group. She asked, "can you explain anosmia?"
Outside/In's Catherine Hurley and Taylor Quimby jumped into a studio to talk it over.
Transcript
This has been edited for length and clarity.
Taylor Quimby: Anosmia is a really fun sounding word… and the only reason I've ever heard of it is because of COVID-19.
Catherine Hurley: I think that's when a lot of people heard about it for the first time.
Taylor: Yeah.
Catherine: Anosmia is basically the inability to smell odors. It affects about 3% of Americans. And just like eyesight or hearing, it can range from partial to full loss of smell.
Taylor: And sometimes it's just a few days and sometimes it's a lot longer?
Catherine: That's correct. Some people are born with anosmia, but others acquire it later in life after a viral respiratory illness. One of them is Katie Boateng, who I called up last week. She's president of the Smell and Taste Association of North America and host of the Smell Podcast.
Katie Boateng: For me, it was definitely an absolutely a loss. I was 19 years old at the time. It was devastating, and it had a lot of repercussions on my personal life, including like nutrition and mental health.
Taylor: I bet.
Catherine: Katie developed anosmia after getting sick her freshman year of college.
Katie Boateng: For like five or six weeks. It was a really lingering sickness. When I was sick, I realized that I wasn't like smelling or tasting my food the same way as usual. But that happens when you're sick, right? Everyone knows that. What I didn't know is that it could be permanent.
Taylor: I don't think I would want to lose my sense of smell.
Catherine: I think that is pretty common, when people are asked which of the five senses they would want to give up, I think smell might be the first that comes to mind, but the people who have lost it… that might not be their first choice.
Taylor: Yes.
Catherine: But there are other things that can cause anosmia, too. Traumatic brain injuries, damage to the olfactory nerve and straight up aging. And, you know, a lot of people don't realize how much they take smell for granted until it's gone. First of all, smell is a really important factor in taste. That's a given.
Taylor: Yeah, that's the one that everybody kind of knows.
Catherine: But smells also trigger memories and emotions and it can be really hard to go without that. And another factor is safety.
Katie Boateng: So for example, if there is a gas leak in your home or if there's a fire and there's smoke in your home, you don't have the ability to know that that's happening based on your sense of smell.
Taylor: I can imagine even just like, you know, like smelling food in your fridge to see if it's still good.
Catherine: Or, yeah, food going bad, like you can't really tell what other people are smelling around you. And there's a mental health toll to all of this. Research shows a link between olfactory dysfunction and depression, and in one study, participants described feeling isolated, disconnected, and insecure because of their anosmia.
Taylor: Is it considered a disability, like officially?
Catherine: Not under the ADA. But to many people, like Katie, it's considered an invisible disability.
Katie Boateng: I absolutely believe that it is a disability. A disability is defined as something that inhibits your ability to live your daily life. And so without your sense of smell, you're absolutely affected.
Taylor: So talk to me about treatment. Because for COVID-19, it seemed like you basically just had to wait for it to come back.
Catherine: Well, to learn more about treatment, I spoke with Stephanie Hunter. She's a fellow at the Monell Chemical Senses Center. She said an option for some people is smell training, where you regularly inhale the scent of rose, eucalyptus, lemon and clove, which is all in an effort to regain your sense.
Taylor: Just like, huff it?
Catherine: Smell it regularly for a couple minutes, twice a day, for I believe it's at least three months. So it's pretty regimented with those scents. Yeah, but the effectiveness of smell training varies, and Stephanie says there just aren't very good treatments right now. But one thing that is getting better is diagnosis. Sense of smell can say a lot about your health, and Stephanie was part of a team that developed a rapid smell test to use at your yearly physical, just like you'd get tested for vision or hearing.
Taylor: I actually have a physical on Friday.
Catherine: So maybe they'll take out the smell test.
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