“Losing a sense of smell and taste are among more than 200 different symptoms reported by people with long Covid. Now surgeons at University College London Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust (UCLH) have cured a dozen patients, each of whom had suffered a profound loss of smell after a Covid infection,” reports The Guardian:
All had experienced the problem for more than two years and other treatments, such as smell training and corticosteroids, had failed.
In a study aiming to find new ways to resolve the issue, surgeons tried a technique called functional septorhinoplasty (fSRP), which is typically used to correct any deviation of the nasal septum, increasing the size of nasal passageways.
This boosts airflow into the olfactory region, at the roof of the nasal cavity, which controls smell. Doctors said the surgery enabled an increased amount of odorants – chemical compounds that have a smell – to reach the roof of the nose, where sense of smell is located….
All patients who had fSRP reported an improved sense of smell…One of the patients, Penelope Newman, 27, from south London, said her taste and smell had “almost returned to normal” after the operation. “Before I had the surgery on my nose, I had begun to accept that I would probably never be able to smell or taste things the way I used to. “Since the surgery, I have begun to enjoy food and smells the same way I used to. I can now cook and eat garlic and onions and people can cook for me too. I can go out to eat with my friends and family.”
In other news, a once-yearly injection could prevent HIV (AIDS).
Scientists have also engineered a virus that steals proteins from the HIV virus, hoping to use it to eliminate AIDS.
Scientists created a “woolly mouse” in the course of their work to recreate the extinct woolly mammoth.
