# Does a Corona infection reduce your sensitivity to hot food as well as taste and smell? **URL:** \ **Category:** The Quarantine Zone\ **Tags:** covid-quarantine\ **Created:** [December 19, 2020, 2:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-a-corona-infection-reduce-your-sensitivity-to-hot-food-as-well-as-taste-and-smell/928399 "2020-12-19T14:27:00Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 9\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Pardel-Lux](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pardel-lux/32/20182_2.png) [@Pardel-Lux](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pardel-Lux)\ **Post date:** [December 19, 2020, 2:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-a-corona-infection-reduce-your-sensitivity-to-hot-food-as-well-as-taste-and-smell/928399/1 "2020-12-19T14:27:00Z")
Sometimes a Corona infection leaves the patients unable to smell (anosmia) or to taste anything. I was wondering if the sense of hotness (hot like on Scoville, not like °C) is related to taste or to pain, and if it is taste, if it is affected by Corona. I have read somewhere that birds do not seem to feel the heat, so they eat the hottest peppers like if they were tomatos, but I don’t know if they lack a taste receptor or a pain receptor (well, I hope this is true anyway and not a myth). So perhaps this Corona symptom can clear my doubt. Does anybody know? ---
**Author:** ![Melbourne](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/b5e925/32.png) [@Melbourne](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Melbourne)\ **Post date:** [December 21, 2020, 7:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-a-corona-infection-reduce-your-sensitivity-to-hot-food-as-well-as-taste-and-smell/928399/2 "2020-12-21T07:29:36Z")
> [@Pardel-Lux](#): > > Sometimes There isn’t a major difference between smell reception and heat/abrasion (capsicum) reception, so probably. Leprosy is the well-known disease where the heat/abrasion nerves are affected, and I’ve seen a report that ~ half of them also loose sense of smell / taste. ---
**Author:** ![Pardel-Lux](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pardel-lux/32/20182_2.png) [@Pardel-Lux](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pardel-Lux)\ **Post date:** [December 21, 2020, 8:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-a-corona-infection-reduce-your-sensitivity-to-hot-food-as-well-as-taste-and-smell/928399/3 "2020-12-21T08:07:18Z")
Thanks! Do you happen to know if this also affects the anal sensitivity the day after ingestion? Do I understand it correctly: that would mean we have taste receptors in the anus, and they react to capsicum, but not to bitter, sweet, salty, sour or umami? ---
**Author:** ![Broomstick](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/broomstick/32/246_2.png) [@Broomstick](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Broomstick)\ **Post date:** [December 21, 2020, 10:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-a-corona-infection-reduce-your-sensitivity-to-hot-food-as-well-as-taste-and-smell/928399/4 "2020-12-21T10:00:23Z")
> [@Pardel-Lux](#): > > I have read somewhere that birds do not seem to feel the heat, so they eat the hottest peppers like if they were tomatos, but I don’t know if they lack a taste receptor or a pain receptor (well, I hope this is true anyway and not a myth). As a person-owned-by-birds I can say that yes, they do scarf down what we would call hot peppers and they, apparently, think peppers are bird candy. Particularly my conure, whose species comes from the same part of the world as the capsicum peppers. The pepper plants evolved to encourage birds to eat their fruit and distribute the seeds and to discourage mammals and insects. Except in some members of one of the primate species (like my spouse), this system works pretty good and mammals leave these fruits alone. I _think_ the capsicum binds to a pain receptor in the mammalian mouth and not a taste receptor. I don’t know if it’s affected by covid or not, but the same sort of pain receptors are in the digestive system exit as well as the entrance. Birds have pain receptors, but being a very different sort of animal apparently do not have the same sort of pain receptor and therefore do not react to the chemical we do. They taste all the other flavor of a pepper, but do not perceive the heat we do. That’s different than, say, what happens in leprosy where the pain receptor ceases to function at all. If covid suppresses taste then it might not affected the perceived hotness of peppers. If covid is suppressing all nerve functions in someone’s mouth then it would reduce the heat sensation. ---
**Author:** ![Melbourne](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/b5e925/32.png) [@Melbourne](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Melbourne)\ **Post date:** [December 21, 2020, 10:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-a-corona-infection-reduce-your-sensitivity-to-hot-food-as-well-as-taste-and-smell/928399/5 "2020-12-21T22:07:47Z")
> [@Pardel-Lux](#): > > Thanks! Do you happen to know if this also affects the anal sensitivity the day after ingestion? No idea. I’ve seen the suggestion that the actual effect is by infection of the nerve channels, so you could well have infection of the nerves around the nose, where you are infected, and not anywhere else. There is well known intestinal flu infection (although the term “intestinal flu” is mostly seen to mean something else entirely), and there is the suggestion that intestinal COVID infection is possible (although we mostly test around the nose). So I’m open to the possibility that someone could get COVID infection of the colon and lower intestines, and could loose nerve sensation in those areas, but in saying that, … I’m just talking through my ass … ---
**Author:** ![Pardel-Lux](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pardel-lux/32/20182_2.png) [@Pardel-Lux](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pardel-Lux)\ **Post date:** [December 21, 2020, 10:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-a-corona-infection-reduce-your-sensitivity-to-hot-food-as-well-as-taste-and-smell/928399/6 "2020-12-21T22:30:53Z")
> [@Melbourne](#): > > … I’m just talking through my ass … You are in [good company](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qXA59RxXvMI). [Tympanites](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tympanites) is one technical expression. Meteorism is another. Better than [melena](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Melena). > [@Melbourne](#): > > No idea. That is exactly my problem here. ---
**Author:** ![DSeid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dseid/32/20194_2.png) [@DSeid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DSeid)\ **Post date:** [December 22, 2020, 2:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-a-corona-infection-reduce-your-sensitivity-to-hot-food-as-well-as-taste-and-smell/928399/7 "2020-12-22T02:11:23Z")
> **[New Research Shows That COVID Impairs Three Senses](https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/the-sensory-revolution/202006/new-research-shows-covid-impairs-three-senses)** > > A discovery may help us understand how the virus enters and spreads in the body. > [@](#): > > Chemesthesis refers to sensations of temperature or pain that are caused by inhaling certain compounds or eating certain foods. The coolness of mint, the tingle of carbonation, and the sting of chili peppers are all chemesthetic feelings. Although chemesthesis is often confused with smell or taste, this third sense uses a separate set of sensory receptors and produces distinctive sensations. … > > … respondents with a COVID-19 diagnosis experienced, on average, an 80% reduction in smell, a 69% reduction in taste, and a 37% reduction in chemesthetic sensation while they were ill. … From multiple articles it seems to be by way of impacts not on the receptors or the neurons but on some specific local support cells around the nerves in the region. ---
**Author:** ![Melbourne](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/b5e925/32.png) [@Melbourne](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Melbourne)\ **Post date:** [December 22, 2020, 8:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-a-corona-infection-reduce-your-sensitivity-to-hot-food-as-well-as-taste-and-smell/928399/8 "2020-12-22T08:37:04Z")
> [@DSeid](#): > > specific local support cells around the nerves in the region The rest of the body uses myelination of the nerves, not support cells. So the mechanism would be different. However, the myelin forming cells are also susceptible to COVID. Not an anatomist. Still talking through … ---
**Author:** ![Pardel-Lux](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pardel-lux/32/20182_2.png) [@Pardel-Lux](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pardel-Lux)\ **Post date:** [December 22, 2020, 9:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-a-corona-infection-reduce-your-sensitivity-to-hot-food-as-well-as-taste-and-smell/928399/9 "2020-12-22T09:19:48Z")
That is a very interesting article, thanks a lot!