Losing the sense of smell predicts death within five years,according to new researchUntil as recently as 1987, British coal pits employed caged canaries as sentinels that alerted miners to the presence of toxic gases. Being more sensitive to them than we are, or the birds would bag distressed before the gases reached levels that are risky to humans,giving the miners time to evacuate and avoid suffocation.
According to new research, the sense of smell is the canary in the coalmine of human health. A study published today in the open access journal PLOS ONE, and shows that losing one’s sense of smell strongly predicts death within five years,suggesting that the nose knows when death is imminent, and that smell may serve as a bellwether for the overall state of the body, and as a marker for exposure to environmental toxins.
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Source: theguardian.com