{"id":234872,"date":"2025-10-30T23:05:11","date_gmt":"2025-10-30T23:05:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/234872\/"},"modified":"2025-10-30T23:05:11","modified_gmt":"2025-10-30T23:05:11","slug":"losing-your-sense-of-smell-new-study-says-it-could-be-a-warning-sign-youre-at-risk-of-developing-deadly-heart-disease","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/234872\/","title":{"rendered":"Losing your sense of smell? New study says it could be a warning sign you’re at risk of developing deadly heart disease"},"content":{"rendered":"

Losing your sense of smell could be an early warning sign that you’re at risk of developing heart disease, according to a new study.<\/p>\n

A team of researchers from\u00a0Michigan<\/a>\u00a0State University found a correlation between having a poor sense of smell and the likelihood of being diagnosed with coronary heart disease (CHD).\u00a0<\/p>\n

Also called ischaemic heart disease, it\u00a0is a major cause of death in the UK and across the world.\u00a0<\/p>\n

CHD occurs when the heart’s blood supply is blocked or interrupted by a build-up of fatty substances in the coronary arteries, causing angina (chest pain), heart attacks, and heart failure.<\/p>\n

With most cases of CHD, prevention is the best cure, and doctors often suggest a series of lifestyle changes\u2014including swapping fatty foods for fibre-rich fruit, veg and wholegrains, ditching alcohol<\/a> and cigarettes, and increasing your activity levels\u2014to improve overall heart health and fitness.\u00a0<\/p>\n

There are 2.3 million people in the UK diagnosed with coronary heart disease, but thousands, if not millions, are unaware they have the potentially killer condition.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Some, however, don’t discover they have CHD until it’s too late.<\/p>\n

But the\u00a0findings from the new study, published today in the journal JAMA Otolaryngology\u2013Head & Neck Surgery<\/a>, could mean that more people can be identified before they become too sick to help.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"Researchers <\/p>\n

Researchers found a link between having a poor sense of smell as an older person with a higher risk of developing CHD (file photo)<\/p>\n

In the study, researchers tracked the health records of 5,142 adults, aged 75 on average and none had any history of CHD.\u00a0<\/p>\n

But they were all part of the an ‘Atherosclerosis Risk in Communities Study group’.<\/p>\n

Atherosclerosis is the medical term for the narrowing of the arteries, a key cause of heart attack and stroke.<\/p>\n

Their senses of smell were measured using a standard 12-item odour identification test and defined as good (score, 11-12), moderate (score, nine-10), and poor (score, nil-eight).<\/p>\n

Over a follow-up of almost a decade, researchers discovered 280 adults had suffered CHD.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Of these, 83 (4.4 per cent) had good olfaction, 101 (5.9 per cent) had moderate olfaction, and 96 (6.3 per cent) had poor olfaction.\u00a0<\/p>\n

‘Compared with good olfaction, poor olfaction was associated with a two-fold higher risk of CHD during the first four years of follow-up,’ the researchers said.<\/p>\n

‘But the strength of the association decreased with extended follow-up.’<\/p>\n

\"'Compared <\/p>\n

‘Compared with good olfaction, poor olfaction was associated with a two-fold higher risk of CHD during the first four years of follow-up,’ the researchers said<\/p>\n

Lead researcher Dr Honglei Chen, a professor of epidemiology and biostatistics at Michigan State University, noted that while a poor sense of smell can be caused by physical issues such as nasal polyps or\u00a0neurodegenerative illnesses such as dementia, it can also be linked to having an unhealthy cardiovascular system.\u00a0<\/p>\n

This is because damaged blood vessels in the nose can negatively affect its functionality.<\/p>\n

Furthermore, having a poor sense of smell can affect your health in other ways which can contribute to the development of CHD.\u00a0<\/p>\n

It can compromise ‘nutrition, mental health, and the physical well-being of older adults,’ Dr Chen said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

A decline in the sense of smell was associated with some of the early warning signs of a buildup of plaque in the arteries, which can lead to CHD, he added.<\/p>\n

But writing in the journal, the researchers said: ‘Our findings are preliminary, and our explanations are speculative.\u00a0<\/p>\n

‘Future studies are needed to confirm these observations and examine potential explanations.’<\/p>\n

Obesity, diabetes and undiagnosed high blood pressure are fueling deaths from heart disease.<\/p>\n

The latest figures for 2022 reveal that heart disease killed 80 out of every 100,000 people in England \u2013 the highest rate since 2011, when it was 83.<\/p>\n

Heart fatalities in the under-75s have risen for three consecutive years.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Losing your sense of smell could be an early warning sign that you’re at risk of developing heart…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":234873,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[97,59,102,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-234872","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-health","tag-dailymail","tag-gb","tag-health","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/234872","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=234872"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/234872\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/234873"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=234872"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=234872"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=234872"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}