After reading a half dozen articles on taste and smell, it is my opinion, as well as others, that the sense of taste and smell do not remain consistent throughout our life. The following is just one of many stating this.
Aging Gracefully: Changes in the Taste Buds and Sense of Smell
Losing your senses of taste and smell may not be fun, but it does not mean that the good life is over.
PUBLISHED: Jul 2, 2014
Taste buds: Who really gives them a thought? Once you learned about them in grade school, you likely did not consider them the reason for food tasting good or bad, sweet or salty, spicy or mild. When you eat, you either like foods you are trying, or you do not.
You are born with 9,000 taste buds, which work in tandem with your sense of smell as your sense of taste relies primarily on odors. Your sense of smell and taste change as you age. Between the ages of 40 and 50, the number of taste buds decreases, and the rest begin to shrink, losing mass vital to their operation. After age 60, you may begin to lose the ability to distinguish the taste of sweet, salty, sour, and bitter foods. The sense of smell does not begin to fade until after the age of 70; its decrease exacerbates the loss of taste for those affected. The exact cause of these changes is up for debate.
