What are you most afraid of encountering when playing football?
pig teammates! At the critical moment when
fights against Omicron, what are you most afraid of encountering?
There is no doubt that it is still a pig! Team! friend!
Many friends were fine after being infected, but their noses suddenly failed and they lost their sense of smell.
Some friends are in pain. Eating has no fun at all. Is there anything more painful than this in the world?
Sorry, this may be because during the fierce battle inside your body, the immune cells become red-blooded and kill your olfactory nerve cells!
In the past three years of the new crown , there have been endless rumors about the long-term sequelae. So are there any long-term sequelae?
In fact, there may be some, such as a loss of smell.
Most people can recover within a week or two.
But some people may go on for months.
The most unfortunate thing is that some people still can't smell after several years. Some people even worry that their sense of smell will never come back?
Damn it, isn’t this fatal?
A joint team from Duke University, Harvard University , and University of California, San Diego conducted research on this.
The scientists analyzed olfactory epithelial samples collected from 24 biopsies, including nine patients with long-term loss of smell after COVID-19.
These tissues are mucosal cells collected from the inner surface of the nasal cavity. After filtering, cleaning, and diluting them, the researchers performed single-cell RNA sequencing to analyze the internal transcription of .
The results found that a type of immune cell called CD45+ was widely infiltrated in the mucous membranes of these patients who had long-term loss of smell. This means that there should not be so many in the first place, but they are everywhere.
There is also a subset of immune cells called CD8+ T cells, which are also abundant in the mucosa.
However, there were fewer M2 macrophages, a type of cell that fights inflammation, and then the scientists found that there were also fewer sensory neurons in the olfactory epithelium of the nasal cavity.
And this reduction is the key to causing patients to lose their sense of smell.
Further analysis showed that these immune cells, macrophages and sensory neurons were normal in people who recovered their sense of smell after COVID-19, as well as in people who had not been infected with COVID-19.
So what happened?
The most likely possibility is that these immune cells become red-blooded and become pig teammates, killing all your cells that normally fight inflammation. Then your olfactory neurons are destroyed, and your sense of smell is gone.
The scientists were surprised. They did not expect such a situation to occur. It was equivalent to immune cells killing friendly forces.
So, for patients with long-term smell loss, is there any possibility of recovery?
Scientists believe that now that they have found the key, it may be possible in the future to repair or at least partially restore the patient's olfactory function by regulating the abnormal immune response inside the patient's nose.
As the new coronavirus continues to evolve and become more and more contagious, the main battlefield has also moved from the lungs to the upper respiratory tract, and then to the nasal cavity. The war between humans and Omicron has gradually come closer to fending off the enemy outside the "national" gate.
Loss of sense of smell may be a small price we should pay. Although eating may not taste good for the time being, it is better than not being able to eat for a lifetime.
This study was published in the December 21 issue of Science Translational Medicine.
