Studies impaired taste by being overweight motivates eating even more

Study on the cycle of obesity

Food scientists at Cornell University in New York State have found a link between obesity and taste in a recent study. Obviously, weight gain can be associated with a loss of one quarter of the taste buds. This in turn leads to increased food intake. The research results are essentially:

• Mice that are high in fat lose almost 25 percent of their taste buds.
• An obesity-induced metabolic disorder encourages the animals to consume even more food.
• This is also a potential mechanism of weight gain in humans.
• A reduced sense of taste often results in an increased calorie intake.

The research team led by Andrew Kaufman of Cornell University conducted animal experiments on mice fed high fat. It could be shown that the unhealthy diet resulted in a loss of almost 25 percent of the taste buds. The obesity evidently triggered a metabolic disorder, which led the animals to eat even more food. The results were recently published in the journal "Plos Biology".

An unhealthy diet with too much fat can reduce your sense of taste, which in turn motivates you to eat more calories. (Image: happy_lark / fotolia.com)

The same mechanism is also conceivable in humans

"This is also a potential mechanism for humans to put on fat," says one of the lead authors of the study Robin Dando, Professor of Food Science, in a press release on the study results. Evidence would suggest that obesity resulting from an unhealthy diet leads to a strong metabolic inflammatory response.

Inflammatory reaction leads to loss of taste buds

"In mice, this reaction disturbs the balance of taste bud formation and reduces the number of mature taste buds," says Dando. The research provides new clues as to how people become obese. The researchers hope that their work will establish a new approach to combating obesity that focuses on the taste buds.

Taste buds and weight gain are related

The researchers performed series of experiments on two groups of mice. One group was resistant to obesity. Both groups got the same fatty food. While the normal mice increased 30 percent of their original weight, the weight increased only slightly in the resistant mice. Even with the abundance of taste buds marked differences were apparent. The normal mice lost 25 percent while the resistant mice showed no changes.

Fat causes a metabolic reaction

Researchers strongly believe that the loss of taste buds is a metabolic response to obesity, that is, triggered when the body has formed too much fat. The experts draw a comparison to obese people who reported a weakened sense of taste. The weakened sense of taste in turn leads to an increased intake of calories.

Bad taste leads to increased calorie intake

"If the same loss of taste occurs in obese people as is the case with mice, it is plausible that these people are driven to eat more, or at least a more intense tasting version of everything," concludes Dando.

The vicious circle of obesity

A normal tongue has about 10,000 taste buds whose cells are renewed once or twice a month. The condition of obesity weakens this metabolism and reduces the renewal process and the number of taste buds. This mechanism could cause people to be kept in an obesity cycle, the researchers concluded. (Vb)