{"id":5269,"date":"2023-11-21T13:44:16","date_gmt":"2023-11-21T19:44:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/?p=5269"},"modified":"2023-11-21T13:44:19","modified_gmt":"2023-11-21T19:44:19","slug":"why-does-paxlovid-make-things-taste-bitter","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/2023\/11\/21\/why-does-paxlovid-make-things-taste-bitter\/","title":{"rendered":"Why does Paxlovid make things taste bitter?"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"panel body-content\"><div class=\"panel__container\">\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.science.org\/content\/article\/why-does-paxlovid-make-things-taste-bitter?utm_source=sfmc&amp;utm_medium=email&amp;utm_content=alert&amp;utm_campaign=DailyLatestNews&amp;et_rid=378170285&amp;et_cid=4992997\">Science<\/a> The COVID-19 remedy\u2019s unpleasant side effect\u2014known as \u201cPaxlovid mouth\u201d\u2014comes from its effects on the tongue\u2019s taste receptors. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Paxlovid can&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/jamanetwork.com\/journals\/jamainternalmedicine\/fullarticle\/2802878\">prevent severe illness from COVID-19<\/a>, but it comes with a price: In many users, the antiviral drug leaves a weird, metallic aftertaste that can last for days\u2014a condition nicknamed \u201cPaxlovid mouth.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Now, researchers say they\u2019ve figured out why.&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.sciencedirect.com\/science\/article\/abs\/pii\/S0006291X23011397?via%3Dihub\">A component of Paxlovid activates one of the tongue\u2019s bitter taste receptors even at low levels<\/a>, which may draw out the yuck factor, the team reports this month in&nbsp;Biochemical and Biophysical Research Communications. The work could lead to ways to alleviate the unpleasant side effect.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The study is a \u201cgood first step\u201d in teasing apart the mechanism behind Paxlovid mouth, says Alissa Nolden, a sensory scientist at the University of Massachusetts Amherst who was not involved with the research. But she says more work will be needed to truly understand why the metallic taste lingers for so long.<\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Science The COVID-19 remedy\u2019s unpleasant side effect\u2014known as \u201cPaxlovid mouth\u201d\u2014comes from its effects on the tongue\u2019s taste receptors. Paxlovid can&nbsp;prevent severe illness from COVID-19, but it comes with a price: In many users, the antiviral drug leaves a weird, metallic aftertaste that can last for days\u2014a condition nicknamed \u201cPaxlovid mouth.\u201d Now, researchers say they\u2019ve figured [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":11,"featured_media":4993,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[35],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5269","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-covid-therapies"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/10\/Screenshot-2023-10-17-at-21.22.19.png","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5269","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/11"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5269"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5269\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5270,"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5269\/revisions\/5270"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4993"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5269"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5269"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5269"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}