Anosmia and dysgeusia amongst COVID-19 patients are associated with low levels of serum glucagon-like peptide 1

Taste Plasticity in Nutrition and Health: A Scoping Review

Taste sensation is at the intersection of nutrition and health. Our food choices are shaped by the foods we like, but our dietary habits can, in turn, influence how we sense food. This phenomenon, known as diet-induced taste plasticity, has received renewed attention as a tool for designing healthier foods and retraining eating habits. This review synthesizes emerging data from humans and model organisms to characterize how dietary environments shape taste sensation while exploring its underlying molecular and physiological mechanisms. Although there is still so much to discover about this phenomenon, accumulating evidence suggests an inverse relationship between a tastant concentration and the ability of the organism to respond to it. The effects largely depend on diet, but body weight changes play a role in specific dietary settings. Several mechanisms are at play, including receptor abundance and function, neuroendocrine signaling, gene expression, and neuroinflammation. Many open questions on mechanisms remain, including the concentration and times of exposure for effects to manifest and the consequences for nutrition and health. Beyond mechanisms, future research should explore strategies to leverage taste adaptation for healthier food design.

Mechanism and treatment of olfactory dysfunction caused by coronavirus disease 2019

Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is an infectious disease caused by the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). Since the start of the pandemic, olfactory dysfunction (OD) has been reported as a common symptom of COVID-19. In some asymptomatic carriers, OD is often the first and even the only symptom. At the same time, persistent OD is also a long-term sequela seen after COVID-19 that can have a serious impact on the quality of life of patients. However, the pathogenesis of post-COVID-19 OD is still unclear, and there is no specific treatment for its patients. The aim of this paper was to review the research on OD caused by SARS-CoV-2 infection and to summarize the mechanism of action, the pathogenesis, and current treatments.