Everything changes as you get older — including how food tastes.
As you age, taste buds decrease and get smaller. Over time, you have less of an ability to distinguish between tastes like sour and sweet. As a result, food may taste blander and less appetizing. But if a poor appetite leads to a poor diet, you can experience serious health problems, including malnutrition and poor immune function.
Kristen Nagy, a registered dietitian at Bon Secours in Motion in Hampton Roads, Va., says it’s not just taste buds that are responsible for changing eating habits as you age; it’s a variety of factors.
“While the taste buds are changing, it’s not playing as huge of a role as we were initially thinking,” Nagy says. “It’s more commonly issues in the mouth due to chewing problems, tooth loss or dentures that can interfere with taste sensation and saliva reduction.”
Research also suggests that a fading sense of smell plays a huge role in decreasing appetites. Some 75 percent of people over age 80 have trouble smelling. Because your sense of smell is related to your sense of taste, it can affect how food tastes and cause disinterest in eating.
Smell is a huge part of how we taste and our ability to capture the flavor of food,” says Nagy. “Loss of the ability to smell also decreases the role the aroma of the food plays in stimulating your appetite.”
Poor appetite is just one barrier to good nutrition in older adults. As we get older, our bodies are also less able to absorb nutrients in the intestines. Poor absorption can lead to nutrient deficiencies and weight loss. In turn, decreased weight can lead to low energy, poor immune function and reduced bone health.
When you have poor absorption and a poor appetite, it can be increasingly hard to eat as much food as necessary to get the nutrients and calories you need. But it can be done.
Nagy suggests finding ways to encourage eating in older adults so they get the proper amount of food each day.
“If mealtimes are in group settings, then it will encourage food intake because it is more of a social event,” Nagy says. “You should also let older adults have their favorite foods if their appetite is severely declining.”
You can also bulk up meals with supplements like Ensure, or add higher-calorie options to meals such as whole milk or dried fruits to help increase caloric intake, Nagy says. “I would also recommend that seniors take a multivitamin to help get more of those vitamins into their GI tract since they are going to be absorbing less from the foods,” she says.
Making foods more flavorful can also help seniors eat. Seniors often need more spices and salt to taste food than younger adults. While reducing salt is often the dietary recommendation, Nagy says seniors and their physicians must weigh the benefits of eating more versus an increased sodium intake.
If an older adult is losing too much weight, more salt may be necessary for their health. However, if they have sky-high blood pressure, more sodium may not be the answer.
“Even enhancing food with other flavors like garlic, basil or other herbs can help,” says Nagy. “Some spices have a strong smell, which can help to get that food aroma to seniors.”
When to See Your Doctor About Taste Changes
While the loss of taste or smell could be a natural part of the aging process, it could also be due to medicines you are taking or a health condition.
Many common diseases can affect your senses, including:
- Alzheimer’s disease
- Multiple sclerosis
- Parkinson’s disease
- Liver disease
- Cancer
- Hypothyroidism
If you experience a change in how you taste or smell, you should always see a physician to rule out these conditions.