A team of researchers at genomics and biotechnology company 23andMe have found that people with a certain genetic locus are 11% more likely to lose the ability to smell or taste due to a COVID-19 infection. In their paper published in the journal Nature Genetics, the group describes studying the genomes of 70,000 adults from the U.S. and the U.K., looking for genes associated with taste and smell loss during COVID-19 infections.

From the beginning of the pandemic, doctors have reported patients experiencing COVID-19–related loss of smell and/or taste, but it became clear that only some infected people experienced these symptoms. In this new effort, the researchers wanted to know why, and to find out they looked at data accumulated over the course of the pandemic from multiple research efforts. In all, they used data from more than 1 million research participants who had self-described their COVID-19 symptoms in studies. The researchers focused their attention on those participants who reported a loss of smell or taste, which narrowed their list of individuals to 68,841.

Source: Read Full Article