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.
好莱坞经典电影《闻香识女人》让我们感受到了即使眼睛看不到，凭借嗅觉都可以过上和普通人一样的美好生活。谈到“嗅觉”，科学家近日研究得出一个惊人结论--凭借嗅觉的灵敏度我们可以判断自己离死神究竟还有多远。专家称，人随着年纪的增大慢慢变老，嗅觉的灵敏度会大大降低，等人们闻不出平日里“熟悉的味道”时，那么离死亡就不远了。看来，人老了视力会下降、听力也会下降，就连嗅觉都会逐渐逐渐抛弃我们啊！

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 died.Amazingly, 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 12.This association was true even when disability, depression, brain dysfunction and leisure activity was taken into account.
来自俄罗斯驻芝加哥医疗中心的科学家发现，如果一个人尚且能准确分辨气味，那么他还可以活许多年。研究团队对1000名志愿者进行了长达4年的研究，让他们依靠自己的嗅觉分别12个标本的气味，在这4年期间，有321人死亡，占到总数的27.6%。科学家惊人的发现，嗅觉灵敏度高的人生存率要比灵敏度低的人要高许多。此外，为了防止实验结果被攻击，科学家事先还对这1000名志愿者做了严格的测试，无一人和帕金森病或疑难杂症有关系。

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.'
这份研究报告被发表在一月份的期刊《化学感觉》中，其中医生Dr Robert Wilson写道：“我们的研究结果证实，分辨气味的能力大小和存活率有着紧密的联系，如果很难分辨出熟悉的气味i，那么那人死亡的风险会增大许多。”