Obesity and COVID-19: Oro-Naso-Sensory Perception

Abstract

<jats:p>Through a recent upsurge of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus-2 (SARS-CoV-2) pandemic, the clinical assessment of most of the coronavirus disease 19 (COVID-19) patients clearly presents a health condition with the loss of oro-naso-sensory (ONS) perception, responsible for the detection of flavor and savor. These changes include anosmia and dysgeusia. In some cases, these clinical manifestations appear even before the general flu-like symptoms, e.g., sore throat, thoracic oppression and fever. There is no direct report available on the loss of these chemical senses in obese COVID-19 patients. Interestingly, obesity has been shown to be associated with low ONS cues. These alterations in obese subjects are due to obesity-induced altered expression of olfacto-taste receptors. Besides, obesity may further aggravate the SARS-CoV-2 infection, as this pathology is associated with a high degree of inflammation/immunosuppression and reduced protection against viral infections. Hence, obesity represents a great risk factor for SARS-CoV-2 infection, as it may hide the viral-associated altered ONS symptoms, thus leading to a high mortality rate in these subjects.</jats:p>

Study of Clinical and Biological Characteristics of Moroccan Covid-19 Patients With and Without Olfactory and/or Gustatory Dysfunction

“…Furthermore, our results suggest that overweight and obesity could be risk factors for severe infection with COVID-19 in line with emerging data published in other clinical studies (Hamer et al, 2020;Sattar et al, 2020). Indeed, potential mechanisms have been linked to immune hyperresponsiveness, altered metabolic responses and pulmonary dysfunction, including a reduction in forced expiratory volume and a forced biological capacity, to the problem of overweight or obesity (Khan et al, 2020;Sattar et al, 2020). Also, lipid peroxidation is a key factor giving rise to reactive lipid aldehydes which will affect the prognosis of patients infected with SARS-CoV-2 (Demetrios et al, 2020).…”

“…Likewise, another study COVID-19 patients showed no difference in lymphocyte and D-dimer levels between those with peripheral nervous system disorders with loss of taste and smell as the main symptom and those without these disorders and, therefore, without anosmia or ageusia (Ling et al, 2020). These noticeable alterations in biological parameters including inflammatory (D-dimer) and immune (lymphocytes) indicators in subjects suffering from anosmia and/or ageusia can be attributed to the severity of the clinical symptoms which strongly activate the immune system, leading to a severe inflammatory (Trotier et al, 2007;Khan et al, 2020;Ling et al, 2020).…”

“…Furthermore, body mass index (BMI) affects olfactory function (Skrandies and Zschieschang, 2015). It has been suggested that obese subjects are at high risk of SARS-CoV-2 infection because they already have a low olfactory and gustatory capacity due to obesity which will mask the decrease in taste and odor induced by SARS-CoV-2 infection (Khan et al, 2020).…”

“…COVID-19 is also marked with a "inflammatory cytokine storm." So, we decided to categorize our COVID-19 patient population as with or without this oro-naso-sensory perception to better shed light at this aspect in relation with inflammation (Khan et al, 2020).…”

COVID-19 Related Chemosensory Changes in Individuals with Self-Reported Obesity

“…Existing gustatory and olfactory sensory deficiency due to obesity may mask the viralinduced diminished taste and smell self-reported experiences, leading to a higher portion of undetected cases in this population (21), we need a better understanding of how chemosensory profile changes in patients with obesity. Furthermore, in light of the potential for using oro-naso sensory perception as an early marker of SARS-CoV-2 infection (22)(23)(24), it needs to be assessed whether the predictive relation between the chemosensory loss and COVID-19 illness generalizes to participants with obesity.…”