First Republic Bank. This article is about the bank based in San Francisco. For the defunct bank based in Dallas, see First Republic Bank Corporation. First Republic Bank is a bank and wealth management company offering personal banking, business banking, trust and wealth management services.
You are born with 9,000 taste buds, which work in tandem with your sense of smell as your sense of taste relies primarily on odors. Your sense of smell and taste change as you age. Between the ages of 40 and 50, the number of taste buds decreases, and the rest begin to shrink, losing mass vital to their operation. After age 60, you may begin to lose the ability to distinguish the taste of sweet, salty, sour, and bitter foods. The sense of smell does not begin to fade until after the age of 70; its decrease exacerbates the loss of taste for those affected. The exact cause of these changes is up for debate.
Most of your taste buds are on your tongue. There are a few in the back of your mouth. The sense of taste is not as well developed as the sense of smell. Taste buds can distinguish only salty, sweet, sour, and bitter tastes. Flavors can be further distinguished because the sense of taste works with the sense of smell. A loss of the sense of smell almost always has a big effect on your ability to taste. Your sense of taste is at its best between the ages of 30 and 60 years old. Around the age of 60, you start to lose your ability to taste, especially in the ability to taste sour and bitter.