Warning to people who can't taste their food for alarming reason

Our enjoyment of food is intimately linked with our enjoyment of life - whether it's that first lick of ice-cream on holiday, or the umami hit from a burger. But our sense of taste isn't something that's locked in place over a lifetime - in fact, our ability to register the flavours in food can fade.

However, there are steps we can all take to keep our sense of taste strong, from working to maintain our sense of smell to treating the symptoms of menopause. Read on to find out what's affecting your sense of taste and what you can do about it today....

Phrases like “sour grapes” and “bitter pill” are reminders that taste is a sense intimately linked to how we feel. Taste is key to good health because it’s the body’s ‘gatekeeper’. As we evolved as hunter-gatherers hundreds of thousands of years ago, we foraged for plants, berries, fungi, seeds and nuts. A delicate sense of taste was essential to help us tell the difference between plants that were safe to eat and those which were potentially poisonous.

To tell the difference between flavours, our tongues roughly have between 200 and 400 papillae – or bumps. On the sides of these papillae there are between three and 100 taste buds, each of them carrying up to 50 microscopic sensory cells. When these come into contact with food, they send signals up to the gustatory cortex of the brain. This distinguishes between the main five flavours: bitter, salty, sweet, sour, and savoury. In different combinations, these add up to the sensation you know as ‘flavour’.

As the years pass, our sense of taste can become blunted. This is because the number of taste buds we have drops because they stop growing back as fast, according to a range of research. The result is that by midlife, we have fewer than we did as children.

Another reason is that we gradually lose our ability to smell as strongly. Experts estimate 75 to 95% of what we taste is down to the aromas released from food into our nasal cavity. But over the years, the number of olfactory cells – specialised cells in the roof of our mouths and nose that pick up odours – also starts to decline.

If you notice food doesn’t taste or smell as flavoursome as it used to, pay attention. That’s because taste is also linked to our enjoyment of life. Losing this appreciation can flatten mood and make anhedonia – or the loss of joy and emotional numbness – more entrenched.

This is because there’s a close relationship between taste, smell and emotion. People who have lost their sense of smell temporarily have been found to react less strongly when they are shown emotionally moving pictures. Scans showed less activation in the emotion processing parts of the brain, probably because smell has direct access to these areas. This is why a sniff of a recipe your grandma used to make can take you straight back to your memories of what it felt like to bake with her.

The sense of smell is also linked to feel-good chemicals in the brain, which helps explain why it’s associated with lower mood. In studies, rats who had their ability to smell removed were found to have lower ­concentrations of neurotransmitters dopamine and serotonin in their brains.

Menopause is another reason our sense of taste can drop off over time. Falling oestrogen levels in midlife mean women start to make less of the saliva needed to break food down. Research by Turkey’s Ankara University in 2015 found that 35% of women said their palate was not as sensitive during this phase of life.

Menopause specialist and GP Dr Ferhat Uddin, of libertyhealthclinics.com, says: “Saliva breaks down our food into individual chemicals which our taste buds then detect as different flavours. So if you have less saliva, your taste sensation is reduced or changed. For some women this can take the joy out of eating, although hormone replacement therapy can help.”

Menopause expert Alice Smellie, co-author of new book Menopause is Hot: Everything You Need to Know to Thrive, with Mariella Frostrup, says during their research they were “surprised” to learn many women suffer problems with their mouth during the menopause, because of the way falling oestrogen causes dryness.

“Less saliva production can make our food taste different, while the number of taste buds decline and get less sensitive with age,” adds Alice. “Some women told us they got the taste for new foods in menopause, preferring stronger tastes, probably because it helped them register flavours again.”

We are all used to the occasional feeling of not being able to taste as well, due to a bout of cold or flu. But if you notice that your sense of taste has dimmed so much that you don’t enjoy your food, even after you’ve got better, consult your GP.

One factor to consider is the medicines you are taking. Loss of taste can be a side-effect of several drugs, including antidepressants, antihistamines, and thyroid medications. Cancer treatment, like chemotherapy, can also affect the action of the taste receptor cells and change the make-up of your saliva, making food taste less intense.

The most commonly talked about cause of taste loss in recent years has been the Covid 19 virus. While scientists aren’t sure yet why this happens, it’s believed the virus damages the action of the olfactory or ‘smelling’ neurons in the brain, toning down taste as well. However, when our sense of smell comes back, as it does in more than 95% cases, our ability to detect flavour returns too.

Chrissi Kelly, of AbScent, the charity that helps with taste and smell disorders, says: “It’s very important to mention a change in your sense of smell and taste to your doctor to find out why. A change in smell and taste can be the result of a virus or physical trauma, like a head injury or an early indication or other diseases.”