From: Stirling Westrup (sti@cam.org)
Date: Tue Apr 25 2000 - 23:48:24 MDT
Spike Jones wrote:
> > Robert Bradbury wrote: the elderly generally have poor
> > nutrition. This is attributed in part to a decreased ability to
> > smell and taste the food...
>
> This has led me to speculate that if one were to defeat the
> olfactory organs, then one's sense of taste would be greatly
> diminished which would almost naturally make CR much
> easier, resulting in a longer life.
There are a number of people who, through genetics, disease or accident,
have been rendered 'snoof' (which, BTW, I'm told is the scent equivalent
to the terms 'blind' or 'deaf'). The medical term is, IIRC, anosmia or
something similar to that.
People who have no sense of smell have essentially NO sense of taste. They
can, in principal, tell salt, sweet, bitter and sour but they are such
small components of the taste experience that all food might as well be
cardboard. They also cannot tell when something has gone rancid or been
contaminated, or for that matter, when the cat has horked a hairball into
a ventilation duct.
>From the few accounts that I've read of such people, I don't think a
longer life from CR will balance a shorter life from not having one of our
basic warning systems.
--
Stirling Westrup | Use of the Internet by this poster
sti@cam.org | is not to be construed as a tacit
| endorsement of Western Technological
| Civilization or its appurtenances.
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