NIH R01 · 2024
Poor sense of smell and the health of older adults
PROJECT SUMMARY/ABSTRACT Up to a quarter of older US adults have a poor sense of smell, a sensory impairment which most are unaware of. We and others found that poor olfaction is an important early symptom of dementia and Parkinson’s disease (PD), and robustly predicts accelerated mortality. Others also speculate that poor olfaction adversely affects nutrition, safety, and quality of life, but rigorous empirical data are largely lacking. Our most recent analysis revealed that dementia, PD, and weight loss combined explained only ~30% of poor olfaction-associated excess mortality in older adults, leaving a large portion of the potential causes of such increased mortality still unknown. The…
From the public funding record at NIH RePORTER. Describes the funded project, not the reviews below.