嗅覺靈敏度可預測人的死亡時間

As we age it's not unusual to need reading glasses and hearing aids as our senses wane. But a surprising study has now claimed that losing your sense of smell when you're older could mean that your time is nigh. Smelling the roses: Scientists found that having difficulty identifying familiar smells in old age could be associated with an increased risk of death
　　好萊塢經典電影《聞香識女人》讓我們感受到了即使眼睛看不到，憑藉嗅覺都可以過上和普通人一樣的美好生活。談到“嗅覺”，科學家近日研究得出一個驚人結論--憑藉嗅覺的靈敏度我們可以判斷自己離死神究竟還有多遠。專家稱，人隨着年紀的增大慢慢變老，嗅覺的靈敏度會大大降低，等人們聞不出平日裏“熟悉的味道”時，那麼離死亡就不遠了。看來，人老了視力會下降、聽力也會下降，就連嗅覺都會逐漸逐漸拋棄我們啊！

Scientists from Rush University Medical Center in Chicago found the more everyday odours a person could identify the more likely they were to be alive several years later. The team gave more than 1,000 volunteers a standard 12 item smell test and then followed them for four years. None of them had dementia or Parkinson's disease. During this period 321 individuals or 27.6 per cent ingly, they found that the risk of death was 36 per cent higher for those who only got six of the answers correct compared to those who managed to identify 11 out of association was true even when disability, depression, brain dysfunction and leisure activity was taken into account.

來自俄羅斯駐芝加哥醫療中心的科學家發現，如果一個人尚且能準確分辨氣味，那麼他還可以活許多年。研究團隊對1000名志願者進行了長達4年的研究，讓他們依靠自己的嗅覺分別12個標本的氣味，在這4年期間，有321人死亡，佔到總數的27.6%。科學家驚人的發現，嗅覺靈敏度高的人生存率要比靈敏度低的人要高許多。此外，爲了防止實驗結果被攻擊，科學家事先還對這1000名志願者做了嚴格的測試，無一人和帕金森病或疑難雜症有關係。

Writing in January's edition of the journal Chemical Senses, Dr Robert Wilson and his team wrote: 'The results indicate that difficulty identifying familiar odors in old age is associated with increased risk of death.'

這份研究報告被髮表在一月份的期刊《化學感覺》中，其中醫生Dr Robert Wilson寫道：“我們的研究結果證實，分辨氣味的能力大小和存活率有着緊密的聯繫，如果很難分辨出熟悉的氣味i，那麼那人死亡的風險會增大許多。”