Medical Questions » Smell and Taste Questions » Question No. 928
| Question: | I have suffered for many months with a failure of the sense of taste and cannot distinguish one type of food from another. I am 88 years old and am wondering if this problem is due to old age or illness. |
| Answer: | A wide range of conditions can cause a loss of taste. These include lead poisoning, a lack of saliva causing a dry mouth, an underactive thyroid gland, some forms of stroke, a condition called Sjogren' s syndrome and numerous rarer conditions.
In older people a dry mouth is a common cause of poor taste sensation. You should get your general practitioner to give you a thorough going over to exclude any illness as a cause of your problem. If nothing specific is found, old age may have to be blamed.
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