While not life-threatening, anosmia or loss of smell can impact your quality of life and overall safety in harmful ways. Conditions involving anosmia entail the complete loss of smell, leaving a person unable to taste food or smell everyday scents, such as perfume and smoke.Affecting as much as 20 percent of the population, loss of smell may come and go or be permanent depending on the underlying cause. In cases where loss of smell is permanent, treating the underlying cause can go a long way towards reducing symptoms.In a nutshell, the body’s sense of smell relies on certain physical and chemical processes to function normally. Smell develops when a substance stimulates nerve cells, also known as olfactory cells, in the nose. From there, information travels from the olfactory cells to the brain for identification.
