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How Smell Therapy Can Help With Smell Loss : Short Wave A curious symptom of COVID-19 that can stick with patients for a long time is loss of smell. Researchers don't know exactly how prevalent the loss of smell ism and while most people recover from it, some will not. This has given new life to a very specific treatment: smell training. Emily Kwong talks to the Atlantic's science reporter Sarah Zhang about how practicing how to smell might help those who've lost their sense of smell.

For more on smell training, read Sarah's piece in The Atlantic.

You can email Short Wave at ShortWave@npr.org.

Short Wave

Smell Therapy

Smell Therapy

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Researchers suggest that smell training can help those who've lost their sense of smell regain it. SCIENCE PHOTO LIBRARY/Getty Images hide caption

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SCIENCE PHOTO LIBRARY/Getty Images

Researchers suggest that smell training can help those who've lost their sense of smell regain it.

SCIENCE PHOTO LIBRARY/Getty Images

A curious symptom of COVID-19 that can stick with patients for a long time is loss of smell. Researchers don't know exactly how prevalent the loss of smell ism and while most people recover from it, some will not. This has given new life to a very specific treatment: smell training. Emily Kwong talks to the Atlantic's science reporter Sarah Zhang about how practicing how to smell might help those who've lost their sense of smell.

For more on smell training, read Sarah's piece in The Atlantic.

You can email Short Wave at ShortWave@npr.org.

This episode was produced by Thomas Lu, edited by Thomas Lu and Gisele Grayson, and fact-checked by Rasha Aridi. The audio engineer for this episode was Leo del Aguila.