  To date numerical simulations of lattice QCD have not found a chiral phase
transition of first order which is expected to occur for sufficiently light
pions. We show how the restoration of an exact global chiral symmetry can
strongly decrease the breaking of the approximate, anomalous $U_A(1)$ symmetry.
This is testable on the lattice through simulations for one through four
flavors. In QCD a small breaking of the $U_A(1)$ symmetry in the chirally
symmetric phase generates novel experimental signals.
