Science reveals cause of COVID-19 smell loss, stress may bring on a stroke, and more health news

One of the hallmarks of a COVID-19 infection has been a lost sense of smell after the infection ends.

In a new study, researchers blame an ongoing immune assault on the olfactory nerve cells — cells found at the top of the nasal cavity — and a decline in the number of those cells. The study was led by a team at Duke Health in Durham, N.C.

“One of the first symptoms that has typically been associated with COVID-19 infection is loss of smell,” said senior study author Dr. Bradley Goldstein, associate professor of head and neck surgery at Duke.

“Fortunately, many people who have an altered sense of smell during the acute phase of viral infection will recover smell within the next one to two weeks, but some do not,” Goldstein said in a university news release.

The Mediterranean diet delivers plenty of health dividends, and new research now discovers it may lower complications during pregnancy.

Specifically, women who stuck to the diet had a 21% overall reduced risk of preeclampsia, gestational diabetes, preterm birth, delivery of a small baby and stillbirth, researchers report.

“We know adverse pregnancy outcomes are becoming more common in the United States,” said lead researcher Dr. Natalie Bello, director of hypertension research at the Smidt Heart Institute at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles.

These bad outcomes can have serious consequences for mom and baby, Bello said.

The U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission and Target Corp. have issued a recall for more than 200,000 Pillowfort weighted blankets for children because they can create an asphyxiation risk.

Four children have become trapped in the blankets, including a 4-year-old girl and a 6-year-old girl who both died. The girls were suffocated in their home in April 2022 at Camp Lejeune, North Carolina, the recall notice said.

The recalled blankets weigh six pounds and measure 60 inches long and 40 inches wide. They have a removable, waterproof, washable cover in one of eight different prints or colors, including unicorn white, unicorn pink, space navy, blue constellation, buffalo plaid red, pink, blue, and gray.

For people with heart disease, new research suggests loneliness, social isolation and living alone can shave years off your life.

This trio puts people with established cardiovascular disease at greater risk of premature death, according to the international study. Cardiovascular disease refers to heart disease and stroke.

“Social health factors such as loneliness and social isolation have gained a significant amount of attention recently and are really important to think of within the context of cardiovascular health,” said lead author Róisín Long, a clinical psychologist and a doctoral candidate at University of Limerick in Ireland.

Stress is rarely a good thing for your health, but new research warns that it significantly raises the risk of a stroke.

The study found that increased stress at home or work and recent stressful life events — like getting divorced or a major family conflict — were associated both with increased risk of stroke due to a clot, known as an ischemic stroke, and a stroke due to bleeding in the brain, called a hemorrhagic stroke.

What to do to lower that risk?

Young adults with cancer, especially those who are Hispanic or Black, had better outcomes because of coverage available to them under the Affordable Care Act (ACA).

New research explored the impact of Medicaid coverage under the ACA, also known as Obamacare, linking it to with better survival for 18- to 39-year-olds. Young adults with breast cancer and stage 4 cancers also had striking improvements that could be linked to Medicaid expansion.

“Using nationwide cancer registry data, our study shows a survival benefit of Medicaid expansion under the Affordable Care Act for young adult patients with cancer, particularly among racial and ethnic minority groups and patients at risk for poor prognosis,” lead author Xu Ji said in a news release from the Winship Cancer Institute of Emory University in Atlanta. She is a researcher at the institute.