Losing sense of smell may hamper sex life too

Losing your sense of smell can not only affect your taste and diet but also your sex life.

"Our sense of smell may help determine our choice of partners in the first place," said Tim Jacob, emeritus professor in smell and taste at Cardiff University in Britain.

Some people with anosmia - the inability to perceive odour - report a loss of libido.

"Smell is a form of communication between partners - people respond to the smell of their partner," added Carl Philpott, an honorary consultant at James Paget University Hospital in Britain.

A lot of my patients who lose their sense of smell say they feel a lack of bond with their partners, Philpott added.

This may be because we are drawn to people who have a different set of immune genes from us - an evolutionary mechanism to encourage us to pass different immune genes to our offspring, Jacob explained.

Exercise could boosts your sense of smell, the researchers indicated.

Exercise increases the air flow to the nose because you are breathing more, so more air flows over the smell receptors, Philpott said.