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.
A: A reduced sense of smell (hyposmia) -- and less often taste (hypogeusia) -- are common conditions that are more likely to occur as we get older. In fact, some loss of taste and smell occurs normally with aging. The nerves and nerve endings that send smell and taste signals to the brain can degenerate as we age. The senses of smell and taste are rarely lost simultaneously. Loss of the sense of smell is more common. Because our sense of smell plays a critical role in the appreciation of flavors, loss of our sense of smell frequently gives the perception that our sense of taste is lost or greatly diminished.