COVID-19 related chemosensory changes in individuals with self-reported obesity
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Abstract
Background/objectives: Self-reported smell loss is a prominent symptom of COVID-19 infection and a potentially useful clinical tool for remote pre-screening of this disease. However, pre-existing chemosensory dysfunction with obesity may diminish the usefulness of self-reported smell loss in this vulnerable group. Here we aim to compare COVID-19 related chemosensory alterations in participants with and without obesity and determine if self-reported smell loss is predictive of lab-based COVID-19 diagnosis in both groups in the context of restrictive clinical data collection. Subjects/methods: In this secondary analysis of a cross-sectional global dataset, we compared self-reported chemosensory ability in participants with a respiratory illness reporting a positive (C19+; n = 5156) or a negative (C19-; n = 659) COVID-19 laboratory test outcome, who also self-reported to have obesity (C19+; n = 433, C19-; n = 86) or not. Results: Participants with obesity and without obesity reported a similar decline in smell, taste, and chemesthesis during illness. In C19+ participants with obesity, we observed a greater relative prevalence of non-chemosensory symptoms, including respiratory and GI symptoms. Critically, we found that the model previously proposed also predicts C19+ diagnosis in participants with obesity. Conclusions: We conclude that COVID-19 respondents with obesity experience a similar self-reported chemosensory loss as those without obesity. In both groups self-reported chemosensory symptoms are similarly predictive of COVID-19 infection, thus highlighting the potential of collecting self-report of symptoms and comorbidities remotely when clinical observations are restrictive.
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SciScore for 10.1101/2021.02.28.21252536: (What is this?)
Please note, not all rigor criteria are appropriate for all manuscripts.
Table 1: Rigor
NIH rigor criteria are not applicable to paper type.Table 2: Resources
Software and Algorithms Sentences Resources Statistical Analyses: Statistical analyses were conducted in R (27) via RStudio. RStudiosuggested: (RStudio, RRID:SCR_000432)Results from OddPub: Thank you for sharing your code and data.
Results from LimitationRecognizer: We detected the following sentences addressing limitations in the study:Our study has some limitations. Our online survey and sampling methodology likely selected participants with a heightened interest in smell and taste and/or their disturbances. Due to that, the data collected at the peak of the pandemic obesity was self-reported; thus, we acknowledge the potential …
SciScore for 10.1101/2021.02.28.21252536: (What is this?)
Please note, not all rigor criteria are appropriate for all manuscripts.
Table 1: Rigor
NIH rigor criteria are not applicable to paper type.Table 2: Resources
Software and Algorithms Sentences Resources Statistical Analyses: Statistical analyses were conducted in R (27) via RStudio. RStudiosuggested: (RStudio, RRID:SCR_000432)Results from OddPub: Thank you for sharing your code and data.
Results from LimitationRecognizer: We detected the following sentences addressing limitations in the study:Our study has some limitations. Our online survey and sampling methodology likely selected participants with a heightened interest in smell and taste and/or their disturbances. Due to that, the data collected at the peak of the pandemic obesity was self-reported; thus, we acknowledge the potential under-reporting of obesity. We also acknowledge that due to the nature of our data being collected in several countries, the definition of obesity may vary and there may be regional and cultural factors that may influence stigma and biases towards self-report of obesity. Ideally, future studies using quantitative taste and smell measures will be conducted in this population. However, although the taste and smell reports were also self-reports, similar to prior studies, we demonstrate that self-reported taste and smell may be a helpful tool to distinguish between C19+ and C19−. Despite the limitations, our study shows differences in participants with obesity compared to participants without obesity with other symptoms. However, those differences potentially do not affect the chemosensory symptoms. In general, more evidence is needed to understand biological mechanisms related to alterations in taste and smell loss in individuals with COVID-19. Understanding how the alteration initiates and progresses will provide molecular and cellular bases for diagnosis and treatment of chemosensory disorders for those with COVID-19 and others who lose their sense of taste and smell due to other co...
Results from TrialIdentifier: No clinical trial numbers were referenced.
Results from Barzooka: We did not find any issues relating to the usage of bar graphs.
Results from JetFighter: We did not find any issues relating to colormaps.
Results from rtransparent:- Thank you for including a conflict of interest statement. Authors are encouraged to include this statement when submitting to a journal.
- Thank you for including a funding statement. Authors are encouraged to include this statement when submitting to a journal.
- No protocol registration statement was detected.
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