Changes in the ability to taste food, which make eating less enjoyable for many older people, are often blamed on aging. But a scientist from Duke University has concluded that it is disease and the medications people take to treat disease -- not simple aging -- that is the biggest culprit.
People naturally lose some ability to discriminate odors beginning in their 60s, which can impair their appreciation of food. Also, the mouth's ability to feel the fattiness of foods like butter and ice cream declines somewhat as the years go by. But disease itself, and the medications prescribed, often affect taste and smell so severely that many elderly people end up with ageusia -- the complete inability to taste food and drink and the distortion of normal taste.
Drugs that can affect taste include most antibiotics, chemotherapy drugs and antidepressants. Most drugs create some change in taste, often because of the taste of the drugs themselves. The taste of most drugs is bitter metallic. Even tasteless drugs can change how foods taste. Not all bitter taste complaints have to do with the bitter taste of the drug. It could be that the drug is blocking other tastes (such as sweet and salt) that make bitter more prominent.
Drugs can save people's lives, but they also kill many people. One of the under appreciated ways that drugs can harm people is by their ability to alter the appetite and this impair nutrient absorption and digestion. It is bad enough most people are eating foods which do not nourish health, but when their appetite is suppressed by medication their diet goes from bad to worse, and without the proper fuel and nutrition, their ability to address their health complaints is severely compromised.
If you are truly interested in slowing down the aging process, then I highly recommend you get the "Secrets of Anti-Aging" telephone clinic. Co-hosted by me, and primarily led by Ron Rosedale, M.D., who is widely considered to be the leading anti-aging doctor in the country, the "Secrets of Anti-Aging" tele clinic will teach you ALL of the following:
Five practical ways to improve your skin
How to increase your energy as you age gracefully
How to improve your aches and pains & overcome your loss of flexibility
The role supplements play in preventing aging
How to improve your memory and reverse your mental decline
How you can reverse the factors causing you to age rapidly and MORE!
Dr. Rosedale is extremely gifted in interpreting the complex basic science research into practical steps you can take to increase your longevity, and improve the way you feel - even if you suffer from a degenerative disease!