COLUMBUS, Ohio — Some might say candy can make you feel better by elevating your mood in certain situations, but scientists are putting it to an even more impactful use.
Researchers at Ohio State University are proposing that using hard candy to look for the loss of taste and smell in populations who are at risk of getting exposed to COVID-19 may help find probable cases of the virus in otherwise asymptomatic people.
The OSU research team got more than $300,000 to fund their study from the National Institutes of Health to figure out easier ways to identify people who have potentially contracted COVID-19.
Many COVID-19 patients feel fever, chills, body aches and develop coughs, but a lot of people who test positive also lose their sense of smell and taste.
OSU researchers are going to use eight flavors of hard candy that are the same color to test how effective their proposed method is.
Their study participants will be asked to identify flavors by smelling and tasting the candies.
Christopher Simons, Ph.D., an associate professor of Sensory Science at Ohio State said that method “allows for sophisticated assessment of the function of two routes – via the nose and the back of the throat – by which our sense of smell helps tell us what we're eating.”
Dr. Simons also noted that this study is not for a diagnostic test. It is intended to see if people need to get one.
“If they do it daily, we'll be able to monitor their sensitivity to taste and smell,” he said.
“So if they suddenly experience a day where, 'wow, I don’t smell that anymore you know, I put it in my mouth and I can't detect what flavor it is.' That's a warning, right? They should quarantine. They should actually go get a COVID test and have it verified.”
The candy is currently being manufactured for the study and Dr. Simons said it will likely start in the next few weeks.
