post 2 - Ageusia

What is Ageusia you ask? It’s the inability to taste anything you eat. This disorder is something that is very rare and can be caused by a number of different things. In true ageusia, a patient cannot taste anything applied to his or her tongue. Commonly, people have hypogeusia, another taste disorder in which the person  has trouble tasting different tastes or experiencing certain tastes. Older people, for example, tend to be less sensitive to bitter flavors. People can also develop dysgeusia, in which the sense of taste is distorted or altered. Even though it can be a problem for a lot of people because they can’t get the full enjoyment out of food. Most people can live it Another thing that it can hinder with is people with the disorder can eat less often and become malnourished. The rarest of the disorder is when someone is born with the disorder of not having a sense of taste, its seen more but still rare when someone develops the disorder over their life time. Treatments for ageusia are depending on the cause of the condition. For example, healthy smoker might be able to resolve the problem by cutting back on smoking or quitting altogether. Someone with a neurological or endocrine problem might discover that the ageusia will be resolved if the underlying medical condition is addressed with medication, surgery, or other forms of medical therapy. Overall the condition can be lived with but also does have the side affects of if someone that has Ageusia can do harm to them.

http://www.medicinenet.com/taste_disorders/article.htm