Canadians who have lost their sense of smell say it's misunderstood, undervalued — and deserves more attention

When Jessie Cabot lost her sense of smell in 2021, the absence that hit her hardest was the scent of the sea.

Aromatic sea breezes used to bring her back to childhood summers on the beach. Now, when she visits her parents on the New Zealand coast, the air has no fragrance at all.

"It changes my whole relationship to the world," Cabot, 32, told CBC's Ideas.

Cabot, who lives in Montreal, doesn't know what caused her loss of smell, which came on gradually over a period of months. But it occurred at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic — at a moment when millions of people around the world found themselves without smell or taste after contracting the virus. 

As the loss of smell — known medically as anosmia — has become a less common symptom of SARS-CoV-2, many of those who continue to suffer feel misunderstood and forgotten.

"People tend to tell me, 'Oh, you're so lucky. At least you don't smell the bins, compost and all these horrible, you know, smells,'" Cabot said. 

"I feel like it's taken for granted."

For millennia, the sense of smell has been widely undervalued — ranked far below vision by the likes of Immanuel Kant and Sigmund Freud. In 2021, a survey in the journal Brain Sciences found that people consistently ranked smell below vision and hearing — and even below commercial products. One quarter of college students surveyed said they'd prefer to give up their sense of smell than their smartphones. 

But modern research suggests that smell, also known as olfaction, is less dispensable than we might think. In recent decades, we've gained a greater understanding of just how much humans rely on the sense of smell — for everything from social communication to the detection of environmental hazards. Researchers even believe that changes in patients' sense of smell could eventually be used to diagnose neurodegenerative diseases.

As the science of smell continues to progress, it's becoming increasingly clear how much we stand to gain by focusing on it. 

During the Enlightenment, Kant, a German philosopher, famously dismissed the sense of smell, calling it the "least rewarding" of all the senses. He argued that it is more likely to pick up bad smells than good ones.

But those who enjoy gastronomy may beg to differ.

When Derek McLeod, 43, lost his sense of smell in 2017, the experience was life-altering — particularly when it came to food.

"I would bake bread," the Toronto-based furniture designer said. "Bagels, all sorts of baked goods. And [I] really, really enjoyed cooking."