This could be an early sign of COVID-19 infection.
Doctors from around the world are reporting cases of patients with COVID-19, the illness caused by the coronavirus, who have lost their sense of smell, known as anosmia, or taste, known as ageusia. The director of the University of Florida’s Center for Smell and Taste and the co-director of the UF Health Smell Disorders Program answer questions about this emerging trend.
What are anosmia and ageusia? The body’s chemical senses include smell, used to detect volatile odors, and taste, which recognizes food compounds like sugars, salts and acids. A number of chemosensory disorders result in the diminishment, distortion or complete loss of smell or taste functions. For example, anosmia is the complete loss or absence of smell, while hyposmia is a reduced ability to smell. Similarly, ageusia is an absence of taste.
When we eat or drink, the brain combines our perceptions of taste from the mouth with what is known as retronasal olfaction – that is, the perception of smell that comes from odors leaving the mouth and entering the nose through the connecting passage in the throat – into what is specifically called flavor. Patients who have experienced anosmia or severe hyposmia may describe a loss of taste but are still able to detect sugar, salt or acid on the tongue.
Viruses could impact smell function in any of several ways. They could attack various cells in the nasal tissue, inducing local inflammation and disrupting odor detection. The virus could directly disable or damage the sensory cells in the nose that detect odors. Another possibility is that viruses could follow the olfactory nerve’s pathway through the skull and into the brain, where they could do additional damage.
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