Can you taste food and drink without having a sense of smell?
Yes, but tasting things won’t seem the same as it did before you had anosmia. Your tongue can detect sweet, sour, salty, bitter and umami flavors. But without your sense of smell, you wouldn’t be able to detect subtle differences between them.
What’s the difference between ageusia and anosmia?
Anosmia means you can’t detect odors. Ageusia means you can’t taste food or drink. You can have anosmia without having ageusia, but you can have both conditions, given the close connection between your sense of smell and taste.
What’s the connection between my sense of smell and my sense of taste?
Taste and smell are chemical senses that work together. When you can’t smell foods and drinks, it affects how they taste. Say you take a bite of warm cherry pie:
- That first bite releases molecules in your mouth and nose.
- Receptors in your nose and mouth react to the taste and smell of cherry pie and alert your brain.
- Your brain gathers up the messages about how the cherry pie smells and tastes and lets you know that cherry pie smells sweet. When you taste it, you know cherry pie has a tart fruit filling and a buttery crust.
What’s the difference between anosmia and parosmia?
If you have parosmia, your sense of smell is distorted. For example, you may smell a cherry pie, but your brain tells you that you’re smelling spoiled milk.
A note from Cleveland Clinic
Anosmia means you’ve lost your sense of smell. Often, it’s a side effect of common medical issues like colds, seasonal allergies or polyps in your nose. Your sense of smell usually comes back once the underlying issue goes away or you receive treatment. Sometimes anosmia doesn’t go away. That’s when you should talk to a healthcare provider because it may be a symptom of serious medical conditions like diabetes or a brain injury.
