Coronavirus: Sensitivity to bitter foods may reduce the risk of Covid, studies show

Studies show that people who are sensitive to bitter foods may be at lower risk of coronavirus infection.

Researchers suggest that people who feel that flavors such as wine, broccoli, celery, grapefruit, and Brussels sprouts are too strong are less likely to be infected with the coronavirus.

Known as “super tasters,” these people have numerous receptors in their mouth and nose that enhance their natural defenses against infection.

A team of doctors in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, found that super tasters were one-tenth more likely to test positive for the coronavirus and that no one participated in the study was hospitalized.

“If you don’t taste the bitterness, you need to be more careful,” said one expert, Dr. Alan Hirsch.

Age is the number one factor influencing the risk of coronavirus infection. People over the middle age are much more likely to get sick. The best way to protect yourself from serious illness is to manage healthy, long-term illnesses well.

According to the survey, the average age of super tasters was young. This indicates that the inability to taste receptor decline and bitterness over time is age-proportional, both of which are associated with an increased risk of coronavirus infection.

Children, on the other hand, often do not like bitter foods and have a near-zero risk of coronavirus infection. The team said further research is needed.

Although not involved in the study, Dr. Hirsch, director of the Center for Smell and Taste Therapy Research in Chicago, said:

The study was conducted by a US nasal specialist (nose specialist) in surgery and hospitals with 1,935 local doctors.

They all did a taste test to see if they were “tasteless” without noticing the bitterness. A very sensitive “super taster”. Or somewhere in the middle, “Taster”.

Half is in the middle and the other half is divided into 50/50 between super tasters and non-super tasters, suggesting that one in four is one of them.

Most people don’t know which group they belong to, but a piece of paper test like the one used in this study is available online.

In addition to the taste test, participants performed a cotton swab and blood test to confirm that they had never been infected with the new coronavirus in the past and were initially free of the new coronavirus. Of the experiment. ..

After the test, researchers tracked all of them for the three months of July, August, and September 2020 to see if they were infected with the coronavirus.

A total of 266 people were virus positive, 55 of whom were hospitalized.

Of the 266, only 15 were super tasters, 104 were regular tasters, and 147 were non-bitter groups.

Therefore, scientists said that people with weak taste buds are 10 times more likely to be positive. They were also a super-sensitive group, accounting for 47 out of 55 inpatients. There were no patients in.

Researchers say that the reason human taste may be associated with the risk of the new coronavirus is in the receptors in the mouth and throat.

A receptor named T2R38 has a bitter taste and can at the same time release nitric oxide and kill the virus.

Nitric oxide also stimulates the small hair in the respiratory tract of a person, known as cilia, and moves mucus, viral and bacterial fragments out of the body to prevent infection.

Therefore, people with more receptors are very sensitive to bitter foods and are very good at fighting viruses that invade the respiratory tract, such as the coronavirus.

One of the researchers, Dr. Henry Burham, told wine searchers on the website:

“They also produce nitric oxide. Nitric oxide has been shown to inhibit the viral peplomer that causes Covid-19.

In this study, “differences in airway taste receptor function may reflect reduced innate immunity and predisposition to certain respiratory and inflammatory diseases, and nasal tongue T2R38 function in healthy individuals. It correlates with the symptoms of “”

This study was published in the journal JAMA Network Open published by the American Medical Association.