研究发现，因COVID-19而丧失嗅觉需要长达3年的时间才能恢复

概要

《美国医学会杂志耳鼻喉科》(JAMA Otolaryngology) 杂志的上的一项新研究表明，味觉功能障碍与舌头中残留的Sars-CoV-2所产生的损害味蕾的免疫反应有关。

研究指出，感染新冠病毒后出现的味觉和嗅觉丧失问题在长期病程中逐渐减轻，且COVID-19导致的嗅觉丧失最多需要长达3年时间才能恢复。在感染一年后，大约四分之一的患者仍然存在味觉障碍，但两年后与对照组无明显差异。而对于嗅觉障碍，超过四分之一的患者在感染两年后仍有问题，但三年后这种情况并不比对照组更常见。

Loss of smell from Covid-19 takes up to 3 years to return, study finds

Far from a benign inconvenience, a coronavirus-induced sensory upheaval can make people not want to eat, leading to depression and weight loss.

Some 28 million Americans had endured a worse sense of smell after Covid.

Far from a benign inconvenience, a coronavirus-induced sensory upheaval can make people not want to eat, leading to depression and weight loss. Photo: Getty Images/EyeEm

The loss of taste and smell – hallmarks of a coronavirus infection early in the pandemic – became a stubborn blight for many long Covid sufferers, but new research shows that the sensory problems gradually abate.

Smell and taste disturbances were reported in almost two-thirds of the 100 people who had caught a mild case of Covid-19 in the fall of 2020 in Trieste, Italy, and were randomly selected for studying alongside 100 uninfected people for comparison. Both groups were followed for three years.

About a quarter of the Covid cases could not taste properly a year after the acute illness but, after two years, there was little difference between them and controls.

The research, published on Thursday in a letter to the journal JAMA Otolaryngology, suggests that so-called gustatory dysfunction, linked to the taste bud-damaging immune response to lingering vestiges of Sars-CoV-2 in the tongue, resolves faster than problems with smell.

More than a quarter of the Covid group still experienced olfactory dysfunction two years after infection, but after three years, the condition wasn’t significantly more common than in controls, the researchers found.

That is reassuring for the 28 million Americans estimated to have endured a worse sense of smell after Covid. Far from a benign inconvenience, a coronavirus-induced sensory upheaval can make people not want to eat, leading to depression and weight loss, and prevent the detection of harmful gas and smoke.

“A recovery of olfaction appears to continue over three years,” Paolo Boscolo-Rizzo, a researcher at the University of Trieste, and colleagues wrote.

“These results can be generalised to individuals of white race who experienced mild symptoms during the early waves of the Covid-19 pandemic.”

The complication has become less common since the Omicron variant became the predominant cause of Covid at the end of 2021.

Scientists have long sought to understand the cause of the impairment, which has been linked to certain genetic variations, and neurological manifestations and damage to olfactory support cells.

Source：

South China Morning Post

Published on 10 November, 2023

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