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Review
. 2022 Feb;12(2):210-216.
doi: 10.1002/alr.22902. Epub 2021 Oct 26.

The taste of the pandemic-contemporary review on the current state of research on gustation in coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19)

Constantin A Hintschich  1 , Masha Y Niv  2 , Thomas Hummel  3
Affiliations
Review

The taste of the pandemic-contemporary review on the current state of research on gustation in coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19)

Constantin A Hintschich et al. Int Forum Allergy Rhinol. 2022 Feb.

Abstract

Subjectively perceived impairment of taste is a common and distinct symptom of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19). Large meta-analyses identified this symptom in approximately 50% of cases. However, this high prevalence is not supported by blinded and validated psychophysical gustatory testing, which showed a much lower prevalence in up to 26% of patients. This discrepancy may be due to misinterpretation of impaired retronasal olfaction as gustatory dysfunction. In addition, we hypothesized that COVID-19-associated hyposmia is involved in the decrease of gustatory function, as found for hyposmia of different origin. This indirect mechanism would be based on the central-nervous mutual amplification between the chemical senses, which fails in COVID-19-associated olfactory loss. However, further research is necessary on how severe acute respiratory syndrome-coronavirus-2 (SARS-CoV-2) may directly impair the gustatory pathway as well as its subjective perception.

Keywords: COVID-19; ageusia; gustation; smell; taste.

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Conflict of interest statement

None of the authors declare a conflict of interest.

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