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Varied Effects of COVID-19 Chemosensory Loss and Distortion on Appetite: Implications for Understanding Motives for Eating and Drinking
A common symptom of COVID-19 is altered smell and taste. This qualitative study sought to further characterise this altered chemosensory perception and its effects on appetite for food and drink. Eighteen women and two men who had experienced chemosensory loss associated with COVID-19 participated i...
Autores principales: | , |
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Formato: | Online Artículo Texto |
Lenguaje: | English |
Publicado: |
MDPI
2022
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Materias: | |
Acceso en línea: | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8871400/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/35206083 http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/foods11040607 |
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author | Turner, Lydia Rogers, Peter J. |
author_facet | Turner, Lydia Rogers, Peter J. |
author_sort | Turner, Lydia |
collection | PubMed |
description | A common symptom of COVID-19 is altered smell and taste. This qualitative study sought to further characterise this altered chemosensory perception and its effects on appetite for food and drink. Eighteen women and two men who had experienced chemosensory loss associated with COVID-19 participated in semi-structured interviews. Thematic analysis of the interview transcripts revealed five major themes. These confirmed that all participants had experienced an altered sense of smell (anosmia, and less frequently parosmia and phantosmia) of variable duration. Loss of taste (ability to detect sweetness, saltiness, etc.) was less common. Participants experienced decreased, no change or increased appetite, with six participants reporting weight loss. Consistent with evidence linking diminished appetite with inflammation, for two participants, decreased appetite preceded anosmia onset. Anosmia reduced enjoyment of food and drink. Compensatory strategies included choosing salty, sweet and ‘spicy’ foods, and increased attention to food texture, and there was evidence that the postingestive rewarding effects of food intake were also important for maintaining appetite. Some participants mentioned increased alcohol intake, in part facilitated by reduced intensity of disliked flavours of alcoholic drinks. The narratives also underlined the value placed on the sociability and structuring of time that daily meals provide. This research adds to the record and analysis of lived experiences of altered chemosensory perception resulting from SARS-CoV-2 infection, and it contributes insights concerning the role of smell and flavour in motivating and rewarding food ingestion. |
format | Online Article Text |
id | pubmed-8871400 |
institution | National Center for Biotechnology Information |
language | English |
publishDate | 2022 |
publisher | MDPI |
record_format | MEDLINE/PubMed |
spelling | pubmed-88714002022-02-25 Varied Effects of COVID-19 Chemosensory Loss and Distortion on Appetite: Implications for Understanding Motives for Eating and Drinking Turner, Lydia Rogers, Peter J. Foods Article A common symptom of COVID-19 is altered smell and taste. This qualitative study sought to further characterise this altered chemosensory perception and its effects on appetite for food and drink. Eighteen women and two men who had experienced chemosensory loss associated with COVID-19 participated in semi-structured interviews. Thematic analysis of the interview transcripts revealed five major themes. These confirmed that all participants had experienced an altered sense of smell (anosmia, and less frequently parosmia and phantosmia) of variable duration. Loss of taste (ability to detect sweetness, saltiness, etc.) was less common. Participants experienced decreased, no change or increased appetite, with six participants reporting weight loss. Consistent with evidence linking diminished appetite with inflammation, for two participants, decreased appetite preceded anosmia onset. Anosmia reduced enjoyment of food and drink. Compensatory strategies included choosing salty, sweet and ‘spicy’ foods, and increased attention to food texture, and there was evidence that the postingestive rewarding effects of food intake were also important for maintaining appetite. Some participants mentioned increased alcohol intake, in part facilitated by reduced intensity of disliked flavours of alcoholic drinks. The narratives also underlined the value placed on the sociability and structuring of time that daily meals provide. This research adds to the record and analysis of lived experiences of altered chemosensory perception resulting from SARS-CoV-2 infection, and it contributes insights concerning the role of smell and flavour in motivating and rewarding food ingestion. MDPI 2022-02-20 /pmc/articles/PMC8871400/ /pubmed/35206083 http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/foods11040607 Text en © 2022 by the authors. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). |
spellingShingle | Article Turner, Lydia Rogers, Peter J. Varied Effects of COVID-19 Chemosensory Loss and Distortion on Appetite: Implications for Understanding Motives for Eating and Drinking |
title | Varied Effects of COVID-19 Chemosensory Loss and Distortion on Appetite: Implications for Understanding Motives for Eating and Drinking |
title_full | Varied Effects of COVID-19 Chemosensory Loss and Distortion on Appetite: Implications for Understanding Motives for Eating and Drinking |
title_fullStr | Varied Effects of COVID-19 Chemosensory Loss and Distortion on Appetite: Implications for Understanding Motives for Eating and Drinking |
title_full_unstemmed | Varied Effects of COVID-19 Chemosensory Loss and Distortion on Appetite: Implications for Understanding Motives for Eating and Drinking |
title_short | Varied Effects of COVID-19 Chemosensory Loss and Distortion on Appetite: Implications for Understanding Motives for Eating and Drinking |
title_sort | varied effects of covid-19 chemosensory loss and distortion on appetite: implications for understanding motives for eating and drinking |
topic | Article |
url | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8871400/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/35206083 http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/foods11040607 |
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