Difficulties identifying odors early sign of dementia

  • A large study found that most of those who were very poor at identifying common odors developed dementia within 5 years.
  • A study of older adults with a parent who had Alzheimer's found that those who were poorest at identifying odors showed the most Alzheimer's biomarkers.
  • A largish study found that poorer odor identification in older adults (average age 80) )was associated with a transition to dementia and with cognitive decline.
  • An animal study found olfactory dysfunction precedes cognitive problems, and relates amyloid-beta protein in the olfactory epithelium.
  • A large 13-year study found that a poor sense of smell was linked to a greater risk of death within 10 years, and of death from dementia and Parkinson’s disease in particular.

A long-term study of nearly 3,000 older adults (57-85) has found that those who couldn’t identify at least four out of five common odors were more than twice as likely as those with a normal sense of smell to develop dementia within five years.

Of the participants, some 14% could name just three out of five, 5% could identify only two scents, 2% just one, and 1% couldn’t identify a single smell.

Five years after the smell test, almost all of the study subjects who were unable to name a single scent had been diagnosed with dementia, and nearly 80% of those who provided only one or two correct answers.

The test involved a well-validated tool known as "Sniffin'Sticks." The five odors, in order of increasing difficulty, are peppermint, fish, orange, rose and leather.

https://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2017-09/uocm-ewh092617.php

A study involving nearly 300 older adults (average age 63) who had a parent with Alzheimer’s has found that those with the most difficulty in identifying odors were those in whom Alzheimer's biomarkers were most evident.

Sense of smell was assessed using multiple choice scratch-and-sniff tests to identify scents as varied as bubble gum, gasoline or the smell of a lemon. A hundred of the participants had regular lumbar punctures to measure the Alzheimer's biomarkers in the cerebrospinal fluid.

https://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2017-08/mu-col081617.php

A seven-year study involving a multi-ethnic (34% White, 30% African-American, 36% Hispanic) sample of 757 healthy older adults (average age 80.7) found that lower odor identification scores on UPSIT were significantly associated with both the transition to dementia and cognitive decline.

For each point lower that a person scored on the UPSIT, the risk of Alzheimer's increased by about 10%.

The report was reported at the Alzheimer's Association International Conference® 2014 in Copenhagen

http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2014-07/aa-sae071114.php

Loss of smell sense linked to amyloid-beta protein

An animal study has shown that olfactory dysfunction occurs much earlier than cognitive dysfunction, and that this is related to the amyloid-beta protein. Although it’s been thought that this protein is expressed only in the central nervous system, the study detected direct expression of the protein in the olfactory epithelium, part of the peripheral nervous system. Moreover, the amyloid-beta protein had a fatal effect on olfactory nerve cells in the olfactory epithelium and directly induced the failure of olfactory function.

A less alarming explanation for why our sense of smell tends to decline in old age comes from a mouse study that found that fewer stem cells become olfactory cells in old age as they tend to remain in the stem cell pool and become less active.

https://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2017-09/dgi-oun092517.php

https://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2018-12/hzm--bc-121918.php

Poor sense of smell linked to greater mortality risk

Following on from a previous study in which more than 2,200 older adults (71-82) undertook smell identification tests, investigation 13 years later found that a poor sense of smell was linked to a 46% greater risk of dying within 10 years compared with those ranked as having a good sense of smell. Poor sense of smell was particularly linked to death from dementia and Parkinson’s disease, with some signs that poor smell might also be linked to death from cardiovascular disease. There was no link between poor sense of smell and death from cancer or respiratory diseases. 22% of the overall increased risk of death among those with a poorer sense of smell was down to neurodegenerative diseases.

The link was only present among those who were in very good health at the start of the study.

https://www.theguardian.com/science/2019/apr/29/routine-sense-of-smell-tests-could-be-used-to-spot-signs-of-dementia

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