CHAMPAIGN — Did the smell and taste of your morning cup of coffee seem, perhaps, less robust than usual?
It’s important to notice in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, because sudden changes in smell and taste can be an early indicator of infection, said M. Yanina Pepino, a University of Illinois food science and human nutrition professor.
Pepino is a leader of the Global Consortium for Chemosensory Research, which has created a 30-day online smell and taste challenge using whatever beverage participants drink at the start of the day.
The challenge was designed to be quick and easy, Pepino said, and she’s inviting the UI campus community and others to participate.
It takes just a couple of minutes a day, she said.
“It’s fun and it’s free,” Pepino said.
And it may help catch more COVID-19 cases that otherwise would go undetected, she said.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention added the loss of smell and taste to the list of likely COVID-19 symptoms in April, and Pepino said it’s more likely to be a symptom in mild cases than severe ones.
In fact, she said, sometimes the only symptom of COVID-19 is a loss of the sense of smell.
Of course, your senses of taste and smell can be impaired for other reasons — among them smoking and having a cold.
Having a weaker sense of smell is also normal for older adults after age 70, Pepino said.
But tracking your senses of smell and taste every day for a month can raise awareness of any changes and potentially signal the need for a COVID-19 test, she said.
Pepino said those taking part in the challenge are asked to choose whatever beverage they have when they wake up for the day because what people drink for breakfast tends to be the most consistent among their daily eating and drinking habits.
It doesn’t have to be coffee. It can be tea, soda, orange juice or whatever other beverage you have every day for breakfast, she said.
After the initial sign-up, participants will be asked to update whether anything has changed for them in their COVID-19 status or symptoms and then rate how intense the smell and taste of their morning beverage is.
There’s also an option to take part in a longer survey, for those who are interested, Pepino said.
Those participating in even the shorter daily survey will also be contributing to ongoing research into the link between loss of smell and taste and COVID-19, she said.
Answers will be recorded for research anonymously in the database, so participants can’t be personally identified from the data.
The smell-and-taste challenge survey has been translated into 10 languages and is being offered worldwide, Pepino said.
The Global Consortium for Chemosensory Research has already found in a crowd-sourced survey that an impaired sense of smell may be the best indicator of COVID-19 infection, even more so than a fever or cough among people who didn’t have impaired smell or taste before, according to the UI.
You can find the new survey online at riech-check.de.
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