Background
Olfactory, gustatory and trigeminal functions are important in many aspects of human daily life. Disturbances in olfactory and gustatory function may result in reduced ability to detect smoke, e.g. fire, or other dangerous situations, poor perception of detecting one’s own body odor, detecting spoiled food and difficulties with cooking and decreased appetite [
1,
2]. Smell and taste disorders may therefore affect general health and social function of individuals [
3,
4]. Disturbances in trigeminal function may lead to oral burning sensation [
5,
6]. In addition, trigeminal nerve endings located in the oral and nasal cavity plays an important role in detecting temperature, consistency and pungency of food and beverages [
7,
8], and thereby contribute in flavor perception. Chemosensory disorders and burning mouth sensation have been reported to have a negative association with quality of life and social function [
3,
9,
10]. A study investigating causes and consequences of chemosensory disorders showed that the reduction in smell and taste affected their socializing with respect to dining and ability to smell other people’s body odor [
3]. Similarly, a survey among individuals suffering from olfactory disorders in a British population revealed a significant impact on both physical, social, psychological and emotional aspects [
11]. The participants also complained about the lack of information and support from health care workers in coping with their condition [
11]. Chemosensory disorders may also lead to an unhealthy dietary composition and an increased intake of sugar [
12], and may have a detrimental effect on both the general and oral health.
The etiology of chemosensory and trigeminal disorders is multifactorial. The most common causes for olfactory dysfunction are upper respiratory infections, head trauma and nasal and paranasal sinus disease [
13]. Gustatory function may be disturbed by bad-tasting substances from oral conditions like gingivitis [
14]. In addition, oral dryness and oral candida infections can make the transport of tastants to taste buds difficult, or taste buds can be damaged by local trauma [
14,
15]. Burning sensation in the oral mucosa can be caused by nutritional deficiency, trigeminal neuralgia, autoimmune disorders, medication, viral infection, trauma following dental treatment, among other factors [
5]. Furthermore, during the Covid-19 pandemic there has been revealed increasing evidence of disturbances in olfactory, gustatory and trigeminal function in infected patients [
16‐
18]. Moreover, disorders in the olfactory and gustatory system can be signs of underlying diseases like cancer, Alzheimer’s disease, Parkinson’s disease or diabetes [
13,
14,
19]. Modifications in the grey matter distribution in the gustatory and pain matrix can lead to disturbances in perception of these senses [
20]. In addition, smoking has been suggested as a possible risk factor for chemosensory and trigeminal disorders [
21‐
24].
Previous studies have shown that men have lower smell and taste sensitivity than women [
25,
26]. However, burning mouth complaints have been reported more frequently in women, especially after menopause [
27‐
29]. Furthermore, olfactory and gustatory function have been shown to decrease with age [
25,
30‐
33]. The reason for this may be structural changes in the oral/nasal epithelium (metaplasia) and other parts of the sensory system [
34,
35] due to cumulative damage caused by harmful environmental substances and infections throughout life, combined with reduced ability to regenerate damaged cells [
36,
37]. In addition, some medications may affect olfactory, gustatory and trigeminal function [
3,
28,
29,
38]. Increased burden of diseases and increased medication use in elderly people, in addition to physiological age-related changes, may therefore lead to disturbed chemosensory and trigeminal function.
Epidemiological studies have shown that more than 50 % of the U.S. population older than 65 years are affected by olfactory disorders [
13,
39,
40]. In a German study, gustatory and olfactory disorders were found in more than 20 % in the age group 65–74 years [
23]. Tammiala-Salonen et al. found that 15 % of a Finnish adult population had experienced prolonged burning sensation in the mouth [
28]. Along with the ongoing growth in the proportion of older adults in the population [
41], the number of individuals with chemosensory and trigeminal disorders may increase in the years to come. Detection, diagnostics and treatment of chemosensory and trigeminal disorders is not common practice in the Norwegian health sector, and little is known about prevalence of smell, taste and trigeminal disorders in the general senior population in Norway.
Therefore, the aim of the present study was to describe the prevalence of smell, taste and trigeminal disorders in a general 65-year-old population in Oslo, Norway, and to investigate associations between these disorders and gender, smoking, salivary secretion, chronic diseases and use of medications.
Discussion
The present study provides comprehensive data regarding prevalence of smell, taste and trigeminal disorders and associated factors in a 65-year-old population in Oslo. To our knowledge, these data and comparison of all three conditions in a general population are limited. This study revealed that olfactory and gustatory disorders are common conditions in this age group of the general population.
One third of the participants had smell disorders and more than one fourth had taste disorders. Our findings are in accordance with a study by Vennemann et al. who found the same prevalence of anosmia (6 %), but a slightly lower prevalence of hyposmia (20 %) in the age group 65–74 years in a German population [
23]. In a study by Brämerson et al. of a Swedish population of adults 20 years and older, 13 % of the participants had hyposmia and 6 % had anosmia, and a significant negative correlation was found between reduced olfactory function and increasing age [
32]. Other studies have also reported a decrease in olfactory function related to aging [
31,
39,
49,
50]. Similar results have been found in studies where other smell identification tests were used [
51].
Regarding taste disorders, a substantially higher prevalence was found than reported in the literature, ranging from 3 to 20 % [
23,
31,
38,
52]. Similar as for smell disorders, a decrease in taste function related to aging has been reported [
31,
52‐
54]. The present study only included 65-year-old individuals, which may explain the relative high prevalence compared to studies including younger age groups.
In the present study, sweet taste was most frequently, while sour taste was least frequently identified accurately in all four concentrations. This is in accordance with previous studies showing that elderly individuals’ ability to identify bitter, sour and salt taste is more commonly reduced than the ability to identify sweet taste [
31,
54]. Although the association between taste ability, taste preferences and food choices is not fully understood [
55], it is important to recognize that changes in taste perception might affect individuals’ dietary choices and nutritional status, which would likely be detrimental for both the general and oral health. The ability to identify umami taste was not tested in the present study because the standardized taste test kit used did not include umami strips.
The prevalence of burning mouth sensation in the present study was low and within previously reported prevalence data ranging from below 1–15 % [
22,
28,
29]. Burning mouth sensation has been referred to under several names in the literature, i.e. burning mouth syndrome, burning mouth, glossodynia, glossopyrosis [
5], and the varying prevalences may be due to different diagnostic criteria used in different studies.
In the present study, women showed an overall increase in smell and taste perception when compared to men. This finding is consistent with previous literature [
23,
31,
32,
50], however, the mechanisms for gender differences in chemosensory perception are not fully understood. It might be speculated that hormonal differences, structure and physiology of the sensory organs as well as training of the chemosensory functions may affect smell and taste perception, but this needs to be investigated further.
The prevalence of ageusia was significantly higher in current smokers than in former and never smokers. The effect of smoking on olfactory and gustatory function in previous literature is not consistent. Some studies have shown an association between being smoker and reduced olfactory and gustatory function [
23,
24,
50,
56], while others did not [
32,
49,
57]. Furthermore, burning mouth sensation in the present study was significantly more prevalent in “current smokers” and “former smokers” than “never smokers”, which is in consistency with previous literature [
21].
Saliva has been described as an important factor for solubilization and transport of tastants, as well as maintenance of taste buds [
15]. Except for higher prevalence of ageusia among individuals with hyposalivation with respect to SWS compared to those with normal SWS secretion rate, no other significant associations were found between salivary secretion rate and chemosensory or trigeminal disorders in the present study. Rusthen et al. found a higher prevalence of smell, taste and trigeminal disorders in patients with Sjögren´s syndrome with reduced salivary secretion rates compared to healthy controls [
33], but no significant correlations were found between salivary secretion rate and chemosensory or trigeminal disorders [
33]. Other studies have shown a negative correlation between salivary secretion rate and taste function [
58,
59]. Previously reported data suggests that several salivary parameters have an effect on taste perception [
60‐
62]. This might be due to differences in saliva composition, i.e. buffer capacity and amount of proteins [
58], which indicates that qualitative characteristics of saliva might be important for taste function. Other salivary qualities than secretion rate were not investigated in the present study.
A number of diseases and medications have shown to be associated with disturbances in gustatory, olfactory and trigeminal function [
3,
28,
38,
63,
64]. In addition, chemosensory disturbances can be early symptoms of other serious underlying conditions, i.e. cancer, neurodegenerative and neurological disorders, and metabolic and endocrine diseases [
13,
14,
19], which emphasize the importance of awareness of these disorders in the general population. In the present study, higher prevalence of taste disorders was found among individuals with a history of cerebral hemorrhage and previous heart attack. Burning mouth sensation was more prevalent among individuals with gastrointestinal disorders. In addition, use of certain medication types was significantly associated with disturbances in olfactory and gustatory function and burning mouth sensation. Some antibiotics might lead to disturbances in gustatory function [
63]. Antibiotic treatment may therefore result in a transient increase in the prevalence of taste disorders, however, use of antibiotics was not reported by any of the participants in the present study.
The response rate in the OM65 study was 58 %, leading to a sizable proportion of non-respondents and possibility for selection bias. The selection of individuals from the target population was random, however, several factors may have influenced whether individuals agreed to participate or was reachable by phone. Individuals with severe illness or people living in institutions may have had difficulties answering the invitation and with participation. This may have led to a healthier study population compared to the target population. When compared to statistics from the Norwegian Prescription Database [
65], a lower proportion of the participants used antidepressants, anticoagulants, antacid medication, asthma medication, corticosteroids and hormone medication compared to the target population. This might indicate that the prevalence of chemosensory and trigeminal disorders in the general population can be even higher than what was found in this study.
The present study revealed several risk indicators for chemosensory and trigeminal disorders which would be interesting to study further. However, the number of participants with specific diseases or use of medications were low and several associations did not reach statistical significance. A cross-sectional study design makes it difficult to distinguish between side effects of medications and the underlying medical conditions. Furthermore, the self-reported data on general health, smoking habits and medication use may be subject to recall bias.
Due to different methods used when investigating olfactory and gustatory function, direct comparison of available studies can be challenging. For olfactory testing, some studies have included threshold, discrimination and identification tests, resulting in a TDI-score, which may give a broader picture of the olfactory function [
30,
47]. An individual’s semantic ability and familiarity with the smells included in the identification test can influence the results when only the identification test is used. In addition, a complete TDI-score would be necessary to establish an age and gender specific diagnosis. However, the present study was part of a larger epidemiological study and due to time limitation only the identification test was included. In addition, familiarity with odors used in the identification test might be influenced by ethnicity. However, associations between olfactory function and ethnicity was not investigated in the present study, as 91 % of participants were Caucasian and the remaining group was too small and heterogeneous.
Hyposmic and anosmic individuals scored their own smell perception significantly lower than normosmic individuals on a linear visual analogue scale ranging from very bad (0) to very good (10). However, the median VAS-score was five or higher in both the anosmic and hyposmic group, which may indicate a low awareness of disturbance in olfactory function among affected individuals. No statistically significant differences in median VAS-score for self-reported taste perception values in normogeusic, hypogeusic and ageusic participants were found. The decrease in olfactory and gustatory function related to aging usually is a gradual process, and might therefore be habituated and lead to a reduced awareness compared to individuals who experience a sudden loss in function [
66].
The results in the present study showed that smell and taste disorders are common in the general Norwegian 65-year-old population. The findings are in accordance with existing evidence showing a decrease in chemosensory function related to aging [
31,
32,
49,
52]. Whether this decrease can be considered a natural aging process rather than a pathologic condition remains unknown. The majority of affected individuals had low awareness of reduced smell and taste function, which might suggest that disorders had limited impact on their daily function. On the other hand, despite the seemingly low awareness among affected individuals, it is important to highlight the prevalence of chemosensory disorders in the aging population due to the possible hidden impact on an individual`s daily life, i.e. difficulties of detecting smoke or other dangerous situations, detecting spoiled food and potential toxins or change in diet [
1‐
4,
11]. Given the decrease in olfactory and gustatory function related to aging [
31,
32,
49,
52], it can be speculated that a further deterioration and the impact of smell and taste disorders on daily function may be even more considerable in individuals older than 65 years. Further research is needed in order to establish how chemosensory disorders affect daily life and functioning of aging individuals.
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