China
Africa
Explore chapters and articles related to this topic
Taste Disorders
Published in Charles Theisler, Adjuvant Medical Care, 2023
Taste disorders have three broad descriptions. Hypogeusia is a reduced ability to taste things while dysgeusia is a distortion in taste sensation. A complete lack of taste is referred to as ageusia. The complaint of “loss of taste” is more often related to a loss of smell than to true impairment of taste. (See also Smell Perception.)1 Causes of hypogeusia can include nutritional deficiencies; upper respiratory tract and middle ear infections; radiation therapy (head and neck cancers); exposure to some chemicals; head injury; surgery to the ear, nose, and throat; poor oral hygiene; dental problems; and certain antibiotics and antihistamines.2 Illnesses such as chronic renal failure or stroke, idiopathic causes, and medicines such as phenytoin may also be responsible.3,4
Chemosensory Disorders and Nutrition
Published in Alan R. Hirsch, Nutrition and Sensation, 2023
Carl M. Wahlstrom, Alan R. Hirsch, Bradley W. Whitman
Both zinc and copper status have also been implicated as being relevant to olfactory function. Hypocupria (which often occurs coincident with zinc deficiency) causes a reversible hypogeusia and is responsive to both copper sulfate and zinc sulfate (Smith and Seiden 1991; Schechter, Friedewald, Bronzert, and Raff, and Henkin 1972). Patients with anosmia induced by head trauma have been found to have reduced total serum zinc and increased total serum copper. This same chemical imbalance is found in the syndrome of idiopathic hypogeusia with dysgeusia, hyposmia, and dysosmia. The importance of zinc is further demonstrated in patients treated with L-histidine, which induces zincuria, causing a secondary hypozincemia and reduced total body zinc. This, in turn, causes hypogeusia, hyposmia, anorexia, dysgeusia, and dysosmia. All these symptoms are corrected with zinc. Improvement occurs even when the patient is still receiving L-histidine (Weismann, Christensen, and Dreyer 1979). Further discussion of zinc is found in Section B.
Diagnosis of Chronic Fatigue Syndrome
Published in Jay A. Goldstein, Chronic Fatigue Syndromes, 2020
While sore throat is quite common, pharyngitis is not. A common cause of throat (and ear) stuffiness in CFS is a trigger point in the medial pterygoid muscle, medial to the mandibular ramus and lateral to the last molar tooth. Patients will often have associated tenderness of the masseter and lateral pterygoid, but only the medial pterygoid refers pain to the tongue, pharynx, and hard palate. Sore throat has been experienced during the aura of limbic epilepsy.6 Ear stuffiness occurs if spasm of the medial pterygoid blocks the opening action of the tensor veli palatini on the eustachian tube. Sore throat developing after exertion is a diagnostic aspect of CFS. Mild erythema is difficult to distinguish from variations of normal, and exudate is almost never encountered. Aphthous stomatitis is extremely common, as is periodontal disease. Both of these disorders are immunologically mediated. Patients often complain of coated tongues, which are only occasionally positive for candida. Taste disturbances, particularly hypogeusia, occur and are refractory to treatment.
The Relationship between Malnutrition and Subjective Taste Change Experienced by Patients with Cancer Receiving Outpatient Chemotherapy Treatment
Published in Nutrition and Cancer, 2022
İlknur Özkan, Seçil Taylan, Nermin Eroğlu, Nurcan Kolaç
The prevalence of chemotherapy-induced taste changes varies between 45 and 80% (4, 5). Taste changes may include reduced taste sensitivity (hypogeusia), loss of sense of taste (ageusia), a change in the normal sense of taste (dysgeusia), or perceived taste without an external stimulus (phantogeusia) (4, 5). It has been reported that these changes begin within days or weeks after the start of chemotherapy (6) and generally recover approximately 8 weeks after the completion of treatment (7); however, in some people, the changes may persist (8). Although the pathophysiology of chemotherapy-induced taste changes are not known, it is thought that taste changes develop due to the effect of chemotherapy drugs on the number and structure of taste buds, changes that the drugs cause in saliva secretion, or their neurotoxic effects (5).
Diagnostic dilemma, an incidental diagnosis of COVID 19
Published in Journal of Community Hospital Internal Medicine Perspectives, 2020
COVID 19 or SARS-CoV-2 infection was first reported in December 2019 in Wuhan City of China. Since then, it continues to spread drastically throughout the globe. As of June 19th, there are about 8.24 Million cases diagnosed worldwide with a vast majority of them in the USA. Some common symptoms of this disease include fever, cough, sore throat, shortness of breath, myalgias, headaches, nausea/vomiting, and diarrhea. Rarely, symptoms like hypogeusia and anosmia have been reported [1]. Over the last three months, a few case reports have also been published which describe asymptomatic nature of this disease in patients where this infection was detected incidentally. One of these reports describes an oncology patient in whom pulmonary findings concerning for COVID 19 were radiologically identified while undergoing workup for lymphoma [2].
Baseline Dysgeusia in Chemotherapy-Naïve Non-Small Cell Lung Cancer Patients: Association with Nutrition and Quality of Life
Published in Nutrition and Cancer, 2020
Jenny Georgina Turcott, Eva Juárez-Hernández, Karla Sánchez-Lara, Diana Flores-Estrada, Zyanya Lucia Zatarain-Barrón, Oscar Arrieta
The mean AC/S score was 31.1 ± 6.9, and 38.5% of the patients were considered either at risk or already presenting with a poor nutritional status (SGA B&C). The mean score for the global status of HRQL was 57.8 ± 25 (Table 1). Prevalence of self-reported dysgeusia, perceived as a different taste from food, was identified in 35% of patients, as well as other manifestations of taste alterations including bitter taste in mouth (24%), dry mouth (67%), tastelessness (10%), and unpleasant taste from food (21%). Furthermore, more than 50% of the patients reported appetite loss and 21% consumed less than half of their habitual food intake (Table 2). A higher proportion of patients were able to perceive a taste (PT) in the lowest concentration measured (hypergeusia-PT), but were unable to recognize the taste presented (hypogeusia-RT) (Table 3). NSCLC patients with dysgeusia presented significantly lower weight (57.5 ± 13.9 vs. 66.3 ± 12.9; P = 0.015), higher percentage of fat mass (36.5 ± 11.3 vs. 30.1 ± 8.6; P = 0.027), higher score on the VAS measuring appetite loss (5.95 ± 2.5 vs. 4.7 ± 1.8; P = 0.039), and lower score in AC/S (25.3 ± 7 vs. 34.2 ± 4.9; P < 0.001) compared to those without dysgeusia (Table 4).