05/24/2018 / By Ralph Flores
Aside from an increased risk of metabolic and cardiovascular diseases, people who put on a lot of weight have another thing coming for them. Based on the results of a study conducted by Cornell University researchers, obesity can blunt a person’s taste buds, reducing their ability to enjoy the taste of food, especially for the five primary tastes: Salty, sweet, bitter, sour, and savory.
The study, which was published in PLOS Biology, discussed how chronic low-grade inflammation caused by obesity could reduce the number of taste buds on the tongue after examining murine gustatory tissues. “[This reduction in tissue] is likely the cause of taste dysfunction seen in obese populations—by upsetting this balance of renewal and cell death,” the researchers wrote.
To understand how the changes in the taste buds occur because of obesity, the team divided male mice into two groups. The control group was fed with a standard chow diet containing 14 percent fat; the experiment group, on the other hand, was provided with a high-fat diet that had a 58.4 percent fat content. After eight weeks, they observed that the high-fat diet group added about 30 percent to their body weight. In addition, the mice in this group had a taste-bud loss of around 25 percent more than those in the control group.
Reduction in taste buds is not uncommon: These cells are often renewed through a process that involves programmed cell death (apoptosis) and the production of new cells from “specialized progenitor cells.” What researchers discovered in the study, however, was that cell apoptosis increased in obese mice, which affected the number of progenitor cells that create new taste buds – explaining the reduction in the number of taste buds. In comparison, mice that were mutated to be resistant to obesity did not show these signs when they were subjected to the diet. This means that the adverse effects of obesity in the taste buds are not because of an increase in fat consumption but rather a build-up of fatty tissue.
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The results point to an underlying mechanism at work, that is, the need of obese people to eat more food to satisfy their cravings. This indicates that the taste buds, aside from sensing flavor and nutrients, can also trigger the brain’s reward system after eating “hedonically pleasing food,” researchers concluded. (Related: Obesity now a sign of POVERTY rather than wealth, 70-year-old study concludes… richer people tend to be slimmer.)
“This is a potential human mechanism for getting fat,” added Robin Dando, a professor of food science at Cornell University and the study’s senior author. He also noted that the results could pave the way for developing novel strategies to treat the disturbances in taste described in their study.
Aside from obesity, other factors may sabotage a person’s sense of taste.
Saving our sense of taste can start from a few changes in our lifestyle. To learn more about how to live a healthy life, head to NaturalMedicine.news today.
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Tagged Under: apoptosis, cardiovascular disease, cell death, chronic low-grade inflammation, cravings, fat consumption, fatty tissue, food, food cravings, food science, hedonically pleasing food, high-fat diet, inflammation, metabolic disease, mind body science, obesity, primary tastes, research, sense of taste, slender, specialized progenitor cells, taste, taste bud loss, taste buds