Sense of Smell

Your result, the one DNA position behind it, and what the research says.

5/10 confidence.

About Sense of Smell

Smell is the sense people lose most quietly. It fades gradually with age, and how sharply it does so varies a lot between people. A study that asked several thousand older adults to identify common odors found this position attached to how well they scored. It sits in TOMM40, immediately beside APOE, and the two are partly linked - which is measured on this card rather than assumed.

Good to know: Smell fades with age in everyone; this describes a small difference on top of that. The study was in older adults, so it says little about a young nose. This variant is partly linked to the Savory Food card's, measured at r-squared 0.44.

Fun fact: Smell is the only sense wired straight into the brain without passing through the thalamus first, which is often given as the reason smells trigger memory so directly.

Discovery: Common variants affecting odor identification were mapped in older-adult cohorts.

The Variant

The single variant behind this trait

Gene: TOMM40

Variant (rsID): rs2075650

Location: Chr 19:44,892,362

dbSNP rs2075650

The studies

Genome-wide Meta-analysis on the Sense of Smell Among US Older Adults (Dong J et al., Medicine, 2015)

Other lifestyle traits

Asparagus Odor Detection: A marker in a cluster of smell-receptor genes that is linked to how readily you notice the distinctive smell asparagus gives urine.

Bitter Taste: Three linked changes in a bitter taste receptor that set how strongly you taste the bitter compounds in broccoli, kale and Brussels sprouts.

Cilantro Tastes Like Soap: A variant in a cluster of smell receptor genes, one of which responds to the aldehydes in cilantro, linked to whether the herb tastes soapy to you.

Back to All Traits

Content updated September 2026.

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