Who Is Most Likely to Lose Their Sense of Smell and Taste from COVID-19?

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Who Is Most Likely to Lose Their Sense of Smell and Taste from COVID-19?

Written by Shawn Radcliffe on February 16, 2022 — Fact checked by Dana K. 

Estimates vary widely for how common the loss of taste and smell is after a coronavirus infection. Cameron Whitman United

Many people lose their sense of taste or smell after a coronavirus infection, but scientists still aren’t certain who is most at risk.

These symptoms can also occur in people who had only mild COVID-19 symptoms.

Researchers say  based on new research, an estimated 37 percent of people had some form of taste loss after a coronavirus infection.

Many people who’ve had a coronavirus infection report losing their sense of smell or taste, symptoms that can affect their quality of life for months after the initial infection.

The severity of these symptoms — which can occur independently — vary from person to person, ranging from a partial to a complete loss. These symptoms can also occur in people who had only mild COVID-19 symptoms.

 internal medicine physician at The Ohio State University  Medical Center who has been treating patients at the medical center’s Post-COVID Recovery Program, said, “Typically, loss of taste and smell is most common in the early post-COVID period.”

However, “The majority of patients have recovered taste and smell by 6 months,” he said. “Although there are some for whom the symptom persists.”

How common is loss of taste and smell?

Estimates vary widely for how common the loss of taste and smell is after a coronavirus infection.

One  Source found that 69 percent of people had changes in their sense of taste or smell immediately after a coronavirus infection, and 14 percent 3 months later.

Another  Source found that only 17 percent of people who had a positive COVID-19 test reported changes in their sense of smell or taste. However, this increased to 26 percent among people who had COVID-19 symptoms lasting longer than 4 weeks.

To get a better idea of the true rate of these kinds of symptoms, Mackenzie Hannum, PhD, a postdoctoral fellow at the Monell Chemical Senses Center in Philadelphia, and her colleagues reviewed 241 previous studies looking at the loss of taste after a coronavirus infection.

They focused on this symptom because “there is a common notion that taste loss is not as ‘real’ as smell loss,” Hannum and co-authors wrote in the paper, which was published Feb. 16 in the journal Chemical Senses.

“A lot of the focus has been on the loss of smell. And a lot of the time, questions about COVID-19 symptoms have been about the ‘loss of smell and/or taste Healthline. “But these are two completely different senses, so we need to treat them as separate symptoms.”

In their research, she and her colleagues used statistical methods to combine the results from the earlier studies, in what’s known as a meta-analysis.

Based on this, they estimated that 37 percent of people had some form of taste loss after a coronavirus infection.

This fits with what was seen in two earlier meta-analyses, which found that taste loss occurred in 38 percentTrusted Source to 49 percentTrusted Source of people after a coronavirus infection.

These two earlier meta-analyses also found that loss of the sense of smell occurred in 41 percent and 61 percent of people,

Tips for taste and smell misfortune

Schamess said at present there are no meds that can assist with peopling who have lost their feeling of taste or smell after a Covid disease.

Yet, he said a few investigations show that olfactory retraining can work on many patients' feeling of smell.

This should be possible with a bunch of rejuvenating oils, he said. Or then again you can make a fragrance unit utilizing food sources, spices, cleansers, scented candles, plants, and different things with a solid aroma.

For home olfactory retraining, Schamess suggests the accompanying:

Week 1: Pick three to four aromas (cloves, citrus, chocolate, espresso, and so forth) and take in the scents profoundly for 5 to 10 minutes all at once, a few times each day.

Week 2: Pick three to four new aromas (eucalyptus, lavender, mint, and so forth) and do likewise.

Weeks 3 and 4: Repeat with new aromas for every week.

"This might help 'kick off' the olfactory recuperation," said Schamess.